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THE MAKERS OF CANADA

THE PIONEERS

OLD ONTARIO

KY W. L. SMITH

ILLUSTRATED It/77/ KKHITY-FIVE ORIGINAL Dh'A }\'I.\GS

By M. McGILLlVRAY

LOG CABIN OF THE EARLY SETTLER

"Formal history and standard biography play an important part in fostering a
national spirit. Canada has an ample supply of such works; but the history of the
Beginners of the Nation, the men and women who carved out homes for themselves
in the dense forests, on the wide, lonely prairies, and in the stern mountain
valleys — their story can be gleaned only from almost inaccessible nooks * * * *
' ' There can be no real history of this land unless full justice is done to the memory
and service of the men and women who, while suffering unbelievable privations,
enduring a loneliness almost too great to be borne, and with hearts aching because
of ties broken with home and kindred, laid the foundations of the civilization
which it is our privilege to enjoy. ' ;

TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG PUBLISHER

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

NEW SERIES
THE P10XKKKS OF OLD ONTARIO

CHARLES FREDERICK DOHERTY

A pioneer who refused to accept as a farm, land now situated in
the centre o£ Toronto, because it was too low and wet i'or agri-
cultural purposes. — (See page 274)

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

THE PIONEERS

OLD ONTARIO

BY W. L. SMITH

ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN BY
M. McGILLIVRAY

TORONTO

GEORGE X. MORANG
1923

8672

•Oillk YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
MAIN

PRINTED IN CANADA

' 'Every side-line in Ontario is rich in memories of the
joys and sorrows of the pioneers. In some of them may
be gathered stories of tragedies rivalling in interest any-
thing told of the lands of chivalry and romance."

J. Ross Robertson.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Formal history and standard biography play
an important part in fostering a national spirit.
Canada has an ample supply of such works ; but
the history of the Beginners of the Nation, the
men and women who carved out homes for them-
selves in the dense forests, on the wide, lonely
prairies, and in the stern mountain valleys.
Their story can be gleaned only from almost
inaccessible nooks, where lies ' * a veritable store-
house of information" on pioneer days.

At a dinner given in November, 1908, to mark
the completion of the first Series of the " Makers
of Canada," Mr. John Lewis, the author of
''George Brown" in the Series, said:

"There is just one other work supplementary
to this which I would like to see undertaken by
Mr. Morang, or some other equally enterprising
publisher, and that is a history of the unknown
Makers of Canada; the tens of thousands of
pioneers who many years ago struck out into
the wilderness and converted that wilderness
into the Canada which we enjoy to-day."

Almost a decade ago we had the publication
of such a series under consideration, but the
World War and the consequent unsettling of
business halted our plans. We now launch this
volume, the first of a series that will show by
what suffering, heroism, and dogged determin-
ation the foundations of the Canadian provinces

were laid.

G.N.M.

FOREWORD

In the Spring of 1897 I began a series of trips
a-wheel through rural Ontario. These trips
were undertaken with the object of obtaining
first-hand information, for publication in the
columns of The W'eekly Sun regarding actual
conditions on the farms of the province.

While engaged in that task, and purely by ac-
cident, I stumbled on a veritable storehouse of
information of another kind altogether. This
information was carried in the memories of men
and women then still living — memories that
went back to the days of the virgin forest, of
log cabins surrounded by blackened stumps in
the midst of scanty clearings, of bush trails and
corduroy roads over which settlers toiled with
their grists to distant mills, of old-time logging
bees, and of the circuit riders who carried the
Gospel message to those real heroes, who at
such infinite cost in toil and privation were
effecting a conquest in which there was none of
the brute triumph of the conqueror or the bit-
terness of defeat in the conquered.

On the memories of those met with I drew for
the material given in a series of pioneer sketches
which appeared from time to time in the col-
umns of the press during the period from 1897
to 1914. These sketches, with some further in-

xii FOREWORD

formation gathered at a later date, form the
basis of what is contained in this volume.

It was Gold win Smith who first suggested
the idea of putting into permanent form the
fragmentary accounts of pioneer life which are
here offered. The suggestion was made shortly
after the sketches began to appear in print.
Partly for that reason, but still more because
the judgments and ideals which have governed
my more mature years are mainly the result of
the teaching and example of Goldwin Smith,
whose character and aspirations were expressed
in the inspired phrase, " above all nations is
humanity," this volume is reverently dedicated
to his memory.

It is not pretended that what is given even ap-
proaches the standard of a complete history of
the period dealt with in the life of Ontario. It
is hoped, however, that the facts collected may
in some measure make easier the task of one,
with wider knowledge and greater literary
skill, who will some day write a real history of
the land in which we live. And there can be no
real history of this land unless full justice is
done to the memory and service of the men and
women who, while suffering unbelievable priv-
ations, enduring a loneliness almost too great to
be borne, and with hearts aching because of ties
broken with home and kindred, laid the founda-
tions of the civilization which it is our privilege

to enjoy.

W. L. S.

CONTENTS

PUBLISHER 'S NOTE ........................ . ............................................................................... IX

FOREWORD .................................................................................................................................... xi

INTRODUCTION

THE COMING OF THE PIONEERS .............................................................................. I

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES

OX THE SHORES OF THE BAY OF QUINTE ..................................................... 5

FOLLOWING THE BLAZED TRAIL .............................................................................. 13

THE LONELY GRAVE BY THE WAYSIDE ................. . ......................................... 18

INLAND SETTLEMENTS ...................................................................................................... L'3

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE

GRINDING CORN IN A HOLLOW STUMP ............................................................... 29

SUING FOR TRADE ............................................................................. . ................................... 39

ACTIVE AT NINETY-TWO ................................... . .............................................................. 45

PUTTING HIMSELF ON RATIONS ................................................................................. 52

CHILDREN AND SHEEP IN THE CELLAR ............................................................ 55

PIONEERS OF GANANOQUE AND VICINITY ......................................................... 63

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

MAKING A PREMIER ................................................................................... ........................ 73

VILLAGES THAT ARE NO MORE ............................. _ ............................................... 80

RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE ...................................................... 86

A WAYSIDE INN'S FAMOUS GUESTS ....................... . .......... _ ............................. 90

A LONG WAY TO THE MILL ............................................... . ......................................... 96

HARDSHIPS OF THE NOTTAWASAQA PIONEERS ............................................. 99

THE RUGBY SETTLEMENT ............................................................................................. 104

THE EARLY DAYS OF INNISFIL ............................................... ........ 106

REMINISCENCES OF A SUNNIDALE PIONEER ................. 114

XIII

xiv CONTENTS

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET Page

WHEN YONGE STREET WAS AN INDIAN TRAIL 127

THE QUEEN'S BUSH 132

A STURDY YOUNG TRAVELLER 136

TEAMING GRAIN AND PROVISIONS 146

BUILDING IN A HURRY 156

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT AND TOWNSHIP MEETINGS 159

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO

THE SUMMERLESS YEAR .*.... 171

A CHINGACOUSY VILLAGE 178

WHEN THE FROST CAME - 185

PUSHING THE WAGON UPHILL 190

THE SCOTCH BLOCK 191

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY

AN OLD TIME DIARY 195

MISFORTUNE OUTLIVED 202

CONTENDING WITH MUD 204

SMALLPOX AND FEVER 208

NEIGHBOURS IN NEED AND IN PLENTY 216

WILD TURKEYS, PIGEONS, AND RACCOONS 220

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY

KINGSTON ROAD A SEA OF MUD 227

PAYING TAXES WITH HAY 234

PACKING GOODS AT SEVEN - 243

IS IT WORTH WHILE? 247

COW-CABBAGE FOR FOOD - 251

"A LITTLE PIT SORE APOOT THE BACK" - 255

A BOAT BUILT AT KINCARDINE _ 260

FROM FATHER TO SON

FIFTH GENERATION ON THE SAME HOMESTEAD 269

SELECTING LANDS IN PEEL AND WELLINGTON 274

THREE RACES BLENDING IN ONE 279

TREED BY WOLVES BUT YESTERDAY _ 286

CONTENTS
STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW

A HEAVY HANDICAP ......................................

EARLY TEMPERANCE WORKERS .................... - .....

A TEMPERANCE TOWNSHIP ............................................

VIRTUES AND FAILINGS .............................................

PIONEER CAMP MEETINGS .............................

EXCITING SERVICE IN A MILL .................................

EARLY RELIGIOUS REVIVALS ................................

THE CAVAN BLAZERS .........................................................

HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

THE BLACK FLAG OF DEATH .........................................

WHEKE HEROES LIE ...................................

INDEX ..... ................................................ 337

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

CHARLES FREDERICK DOHERTY Frontispiece

LOG CABIN OF THE EARLY SETTLERS

A PlONEEK

GRANDMOTHER TRULL'S IRON POT -

BLAZED TREE — PRIMITIVE LANTERN

WINTERING THE Cow

SPINNING FLAX

DURHAM BOAT

A ONE BOOM SCHOOL IN THE EARLY DAYS 33

WOODEN HARROWS IN THE SHAPE OF A V 34

SELF-RAKING REAPER 35

LOADING THE POWER

REVOLVING RAKE

HUSKING BEE

IMPROVED SLED — WASHING SHEEP 41

SINGLE HANDLED PLOW WITH CROSSBAR — PLOW WITH WOODEN

BEAM 43

A CABIN OF THE SECOND GENERATION 46

SICKLE — HARVESTING WITH CRADLE 48

OLD FAMILY PLOT 51

PIONEER COURTSHIPS: FATHER PREPARES FOR BED 56

EARLY WEAPONS — CANDLE MOULD 59

CIDER PRESS 64

A DAUNTLESS RIDER 67

PLAY ACTORS 71

T HE Loo SCHOOL HOUSE - 77

XVII

XV1« ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

INDIAN BASKET *

THE OLD SAWMILL

RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE 87

A DRUNKEN DRIVER

A RURAL BELLE OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 94

TAKING HOME THE GRIST 100

SOAP-MAKING IN THE EARLY DAYS 101

SKIDDING LOGS

IUo

PIONEER TOOLS— CANDLESTICK 109

DEPARTURE OF SIMPSON 118

A BUSH TAVERN 120

MARY 's LAST TREE 121

AWAITING THEIR TURN TO UNLOAD 134

THE WHOLE DISTANCE BY WAGGON 138

SAVING THE BRIDGE TOLL „ 140

A PIONEER CHURCH SERVICE 150

A LOGGING BEE ,KO

lO£»

CRADLE ... 1C_

157

TOWNSHIP MEETING 160

SHEARING SHEEP 16g

A FIDDLER'S PLIGHT 167

BARN-RAISING BEE j 76

GOING TO MARKET — RETURN FROM MARKET 189

"THE DRIVER FARED BEST OF ALL" 197

SPINNING WOOLLEN YARN 198

Ox YOKE — PRIMITIVE LATCH 205

PEDDLER — ASSESSOR 214

A PIONEER DANCE 219

CARRYING WATER — RACCOONS 221

WEDDING PARTY:— A PIPER ENLIVENS THE SCENE 226

CALL TO DINNER — DINNER GONG 231

SECURELY ANCHORED— CHURN, CROCK, BUTTER BOWL AND LADLE 240

CLEANING GRAIN 254

WHIP-SAW 263

ILLUSTRATIONS xix

Page

WAX SEALS OF CROWNLANU DEEDS -''7

WASHING THE BLANKETS
DOHERTY HOMESTEAD — BUILT ix 1844
MAKING TOOLS

SUNBONNET — CEDAR BROOM

OLD OAKEN BUCKET— ASH-LEECH
RAISING A LOG BARN-
MAKING MAPLE SYRUP

A PIONEER CAMP MEETING

AN UNUSUAL SIGHT

AN ONTARIO FARM OF THE PRESENT DAY

THE FATHER OF MERCY

THE RESTING PLACE OF TAVO DIFFERENT MEN 332

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

INTRODUCTION

THE COMING OF THE PIONEERS

In August, 1535, Jacques Cartier sailed up the
St. Lawrence and cast anchor at the Indian
village of Stadacoiia. In 1608, Champlain, fol-
lowing in the wake of Cartier, landed at Stada-
cona with men and materials to lay the founda-
tions of Quebec city. Around this centre grew up
a small community, destined to spread its influ-
ence until a prosperous colony was built up on
the banks of the lower St. Lawrence.

Fur-traders and adventurers penetrated far
inland setting up trading-posts by lake and
river. French missionaries lived and laboured
amongst the Indians, winning converts by their
devoted service. Explorers mapped out the
courses of streams and noted the natural
resources of the country. Military leaders built
forts at strategic points. But for years, scarcely
anyone seems to have thought seriously of mak-
ing a living by the cultivation of the soil.
Governor after governor complained to the
home authorities that in contrast with the Eng-
lish settlers in the New England colonies, who
began at once to follow agriculture, the French

2 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

settlers preferred to engage in the adventurous
and more lucrative occupation of trading in furs.

But with the passing of Canada to the English
in 1763 and the subsequent revolt of the Amer-
ican colonies, all this was changed. Many col-
onists who had remained true to England had
either been ruined during the revolt or subse-
quently found their old surroundings uncongen-
ial and looked to Canada as a place of escape.
The home government promised assistance, and
thousands responded to the invitation to settle
in Canada.

In the matter of location, the new-comers
seem to have been allowed a wide range of
choice. Lands, in what are now designated the
Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and Ontario, were
offered for settlement. Coming from New York
and other agricultural states, many of the im-
migrants chose Ontario, settling for the most
part within easy distance of the Great Lakes
waterway.

With their coming, the pioneer period of agri-
culture in Ontario may be said to have begun.
Nearly all of those who came at first were of
humble origin, of honest purpose, and almost
destitute of means. For two or three years,
owing to crop failures and lack of equipment,
they received some aid from the Government.
A considerable proportion of these first settlers
were Loyalists, and mingling with them were
discharged soldiers, many of them Hessians,
who took up land in preference to returning
to Europe.

In addition to the Loyalists and subsequent
American immigrants there were thousands who

INTRODUCTION 3

came direct from the Old World to settle in
Canada. Those of American origin arrived
mainly between 1780 and 1812, while the
principal movement from overseas commenced
a few years later. The first-comers from what
is now the United States followed three main
routes, one along the line of the St. Lawrence
from Lower Canada, another from Oswego in
New York State to Kingston and the Bay of
Quinte, and still another by way of the Niagara
frontier. Those arriving at Niagara divided in-
to three sections on reaching the border. One
section moved westward to lay the foundations
of Haldimand and Waterloo counties ; the second,
passing around the head of Lake Ontario, settled
in Markham, Scarboro, and adjoining townships;
while the third followed the shores of the lake
farther eastward for some fifty miles to a point
where they almost joined with those coming
up the St. Lawrence.

The later, and greater wave of pioneer im-
migration, originating from beyond the Atlan-
tic, on- arriving in Canada followed a route in-
land lying along the St. Lawrence and the Ot-
tawa rivers by way of Bytown, as Ottawa was
then called. From there the immigrants spread
all over Eastern Ontario.

It is with these strangers in a new land, com-
ing from widely separated sources, that we are
concerned in these pages. Let us hear their
story as they or their immediate descendants
told it a quarter of a century ago.

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES
ON THE SHORES OF THE BAY OF QUINTE

It was no mere accident that the first place
chosen for settlement is what is now Ontario,
was the country in the vicinity of Kingston.
Over a hundred years before, in 1673, Fron-
tenac, the most illustrious of the governors
of New France, visited the spot in state, and
established a fort on the site of Kingston. But
no attempt at settlement was made. The fort
was intended merely as a link in the great fur-
trading enterprise and as a barrier against the
incursion of the Jroquois, the uncompromising
enemies of the French.

A short time before Colonel Bradstreet cap-
tured Fort Frontenac in 1758, one Michael Grass
had been a prisoner in the fort, After his
release he returned to the colony of New York
and settled on a farm about thirty miles from
New York City. When the Revolution was in
full swing, Grass was offered a commission in
the Revolutionary army, but he was a staunch
upholder of British authority and rejected the
offer. As a result of his action his life was in
danger and he sought shelter in New York City.
Sir Guy Carleton (afterwards Lord Dorchester)
was in command of the British forces. When in
1783 the Revolutionists emerged successful from
the struggle, there was wholesale confiscation of

6 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Loyalist property and it was necessary to find
homes on British territory for many of those
who had remained faithful to the Crown.
Carleton viewed with favour the Great Lakes
regions as a place for settlement, and knowing
that Michael Grass was familiar with the coun-
try about old Fort Frontenac, consulted with
him regarding the character of the climate and
soil. Grass gave a favourable report, and Carle-
ton decided to send a considerable body of
Loyalists to the region lying at the eastern end
of Lake Ontario. Grass was given a captain's
commission and placed in charge of a large party
that sailed from New York for the St. Lawrence
in seven ships escorted by a man-of-war. The
voyage was a tedious and dangerous one, and
the emigrants did not reach Sorel, at the mouth
of the Richelieu, until it was too late in the year
to proceed westward.

Here they spent the winter; but their story is
best told in the language of men who came into
contact with their descendants, and who had
access to their records.

In the first week of August, 1899, I sat chat-
ting with T. W. Casey, a faithful custodian of
early records in Lennox county; Rev. R. S.
Forneri, one of those instrumental in the erec-
tion of memorials to the creators of first things
in Ontario; and Parker Allen, a grandson of
one of the first settlers in Adolphustown, and
at the time one of the two survivors of Sir John
A. Macdonald's first schoolmates. The hot rays
of the afternoon sun were beating down upon the
fields of yellow grain, before us glistened the
rippling waters of the Bay of Quinte, while

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 7

beyond them rose the bush-studded shores of
Prince Edward. Behind the trees under which
we were seated stood a commodious farm home
with extensive outbuildings, while across the
road the eye fell upon the beautiful farmstead
of the nearest neighbour. Everything breathed
of prosperity and comfort.

"One can scarcely believe," said Mr. Casey,
"that a century ago the land for miles in all di-
rections from where we now sit was nothing but
unbroken bush. Yet it is little more than a cen-
tury since the forest in this neighbourhood was
first attacked by the axe of the pioneer. The
earliest settlers along the front of Frontenac
and Lennox came from New York State, leaving
there in the fall of 1783. The British Govern-
ment furnished vessels to carry them to Sorel,
on the Richelieu, where the winter of 1783 was
spent. There they made their first acquaintance
with the discomforts of a new country. Their
winter habitations were huts of log cut from the
surrounding forest. As the long winter months
dragged on the men busied themselves in felling
trees from which to construct boats to take them
further inland. With the coming of spring, an
advance party journeyed westward in these
rude craft, and reached Little Cataraqui Creek,
three miles west of Fort Frontenac, in June.

"Surveyor-General Holland had sent Deputy
Surveyor Collins with the settlers, and under
his direction townships were laid out. This was
no easy task, and it was not completed until
late in the summer. The advance guard then
returned to Sorel, where another trying winter
was spent. In the spring of 1785, the whole

party moved forward and were soon carving out
homes for themselves in the wilderness.

"Cut off from civilization by the rapids of
the St. Lawrence they were very much isolated.
Nor was their condition improved by their ar-
rival in the middle of summer, too late to sow
grain for that year or to make clearances for
sowing fall wheat. Without money, for the
Government refused to issue specie, without
crops, and away from sources of supply their
condition became desperate. To add to their
troubles the year 1788 was one of complete
crop failure. Of the following season when fam-
ine stalked in the land I have heard some pitiful
tales. Many actually died of starvation while
others were saved only by the game and wild
pigeons which they were able to capture.

"These pioneers were grouped in five com-
panies under the leadership of Captain Grass,
Sir John Johnson, Colonel Rogers, Major Van
Alstine, and Colonel Macdonell, and to each
company was allotted a township. Four of these
companies were composed mainly of soldiers and
people who belonged to the mercantile classes
in the Old Thirteen Colonies. Knowing nothing
of bush life and little more of farming they
were ill-prepared for the rugged life of agricul-
tural pioneers.

"The Adolphustown settlers, under Major
Van Alstine, on the other hand were mostly far-
mers and were able to turn their past training to
good account. The first landing took place at a
little cove about a stone's throw from where D.
W. Allison, at one time member for the Com-
mons, afterwards built a fine residence, and on

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 9

the farm of which Nicholas Hagerman was the
first owner This llagerniau was the father of
Chief Justice Hagerman and three members of
parliament. A granddaughter married the Hon-
ourable John Beverley Robinson at one time the
Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.

' ' Scarcely had the pilgrims settled in their new
home when a final resting-place had to be
found for a child which had succumbed to the
hardships sustained during the journey. The
site selected for burial was on a slight eminence
a little way back from the water's edge, and the
grave prepared for the little one formed the
beginning of the first cemetery laid out by
those now peopling Ontario. Within the en-
closure so formed the body of Nicholas Hager-
man, one of the first practising lawyers in Can-
ada, was laid later on; but the location of this
grave is unknown to-day."

"You see," saidtheRev.Mr.Forneri, who took
up the story, "stones could not be procured at
the time the first burials took place and the
wooden slabs that were put up decayed in a few
years. But before long tombstones could be
procured, and if you visit a nearby graveyard
you will find monuments marking the resting-
places of Caseys, Ingersolls, Hoovers, Rich-
monds, Allisons, and Huffriails of that gener-
ation, while overshadowing all is a splendid
granite shaft, bearing the inscription: 'U. E.
Loyalist Burying Ground, In Memory of the
Loyalists who landed here June 16th, 1784.' '

"But the extreme hardships of the very early
days," broke in Mr. Allen, "before many years
became a thing of the past, Probably no house-

10 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

holds at any time were more self-contained
than the homes of these pioneers. Both men and
women worked hard, the land was fruitful, and,
since there was little sale for any produce, food
and the raw materials for clothing and shelter
were in abundance. Good houses, all of wood,
took the place of log cabins, and barns that of
rude hovels. Orchards had early been planted,
and these provided plenty of domestic fruit to
supplement what was gathered from the bush.
Every matron prided herself on putting away
quantities of it for home use. A long narrow
strip of territory bordering on the waterfront
thus within a few years became a place of com-
fortable living, and to many it seemed as though
the sum of all they could expect or even desire
in this life had been attained."

From this our conversation drifted to the
coming of later immigrants, and Mr. Forneri
recalled an incident associated with a cemetery
within the city of Kingston. Here lie the bodies
of some four hundred Irish immigrants who per-
ished of cholera in 1847. A monument erected
on August 6th, 1894, marks the spot, and it
was at the base of this monument that Arch-
bishop Cleary and Principal Grant, doughty
champions of opposing ideals in a conflict of the
passing generation, forgot their antagonisms as
their tears mingled in memory of those who per-
ished almost as soon as they set foot in a land
wherein they had hoped to find a happier home
than the one left beyond the sea.

The stories surviving in Lennox at the time
of my visit were chiefly of a sombre nature, but I
also gathered some facts of quite another char-

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES

A. PIONEER

acter. To Adolphustown, the front township of
Lennox, belongs the honour of having formed the
first municipal government in Ontario. "The
record of that government still exists," said Mr.
Casey. "Although written by men engaged in
the rough work inseparable from pioneer life,
it is a model of neatness. Indeed, I question
if there is in the province to-day a better kept
record of the kind."

Some of the fiercest political battles Ontario
has ever known were also staged in the historic
county of Lennox. In one of these contests Sir
Henry Smith and James Morton, a rich distiller,
were the principals, with Sir John A. Macdonald
backing Morton. The latter won and the whole
county, at least the Morton part of it, assembled
to celebrate the victory. "There were," in the
picturesque language of one who heard the
story from his father, "ten acres of teams; oxen
were roasted whole, and feasting was kept up
for two days and two nights."

The story of Ontario begins with the pioneers
of Lennox and Frontenac. It was along the
front of these counties that the first settle-
ment was formed by the advance refugees who
came to this province after the American Revolu-
tion. Here the system of municipal govern-
ment which we have in Ontario had its origin.
In fact the first township government in Len-
nox, mentioned above, was formed in advance of
provincial sanction and was taken as a model
for the system afterwards created by provincial
authority. Here, too, were first founded the On-
tario branches of families whose deeds have
since been written into the history of the prov-

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 13

ince and of the Dominion. These families include
the Cartwrights, Hagermans, Bethunes, Wall-
bridges, Inglis', and Caseys. In Lennox, too,
Sir John A. Macdonald spent his boyhood days,
and in the beautiful cemetery of Cataraqui, in
the neighbouring county of Front enac, his body
rests under a plain stone bearing the simple in-
scription,—
"John Alexander Macdonald 1815-1895 at rest."

FOLLOWING THE BLAZED TRAIL

While the pioneers on the shores of the Bay
of Quinte were making homes for themselves,
other settlers were coming in by way of Niag-
ara and the head of Lake Ontario. Of these the
Trulls, Burkes, and Conants penetrated farthest
east and located in what is now Durham
county. On the second day of October, 1794,
these families began the first settlement in the
township of Darlington.

"There were no roads on either side of the
head of the lake at that time," said Jesse Trull,
a quarter of a century ago the head of the Trull
family, as he told the story of the migration
at a family picnic held on the old homestead
in 1898. "On a journey that can now be made
in a few hours we spent a month and one day.
Leaving the old home in New York State on the
first of September, we skirted the south shore
of Lake Ontario in open boats to Niagara.
From Niagara we followed the shore lino all the
way to Barber's Creek, and, on the second of
October, camped in front of where the settle-
ment was formed.

14 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"The journey was tedious, toilsome, and not
devoid of danger. It was the month of storms
on the lake, and when one of the frequent gales
came up we had to pull our boats ashore for
shelter. When night fell we also went ashore
and camped in the woods that then covered the
whole country from the lake front to the far-
thest north. As matches were still an invention
of the future we had to depend on a flint, or the
rubbing together of two sticks, to start a fire, a
difficult operation at best and almost impossible
of accomplishment when rain was falling. Our
cooking utensils were pots hung on stakes over
an open fire, and our food consisted of fish
caught in the lake, game obtained from the for-
est, and bread hastily cooked from the flour we
carried with us. Sleep was frequently broken
by the howling of wolves, and some of the party
had to remain on guard all night."

Nor were hardships at an end when the final
stopping place was reached. Rather had they
but begun.

"It was not then a drive of a few miles to
town, over gravelled roads, when groceries were
needed," said the patriarch. "Kingston and
Toronto were our nearest markets and the jour-
ney, made in 'dug-outs' (boats fashioned from
hollow logs), was a matter of days. Even when
schooners appeared on the lake, transportation
was no easy matter. In the absence of wharves
the vessels had to lie out in the lake while farm
produce was transported to them in open boats.
One of the tragedies of the early days of settle-
ment happened when Jesse Trull, my uncle, was
drowned while transferring grain from a row-

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 15

boat to a schooner that was engaged in gather-
ing farm produce along the shore."

One of the heirlooms in the Trull family is a
small iron pot; and connected with the pot is a
story that throws much light on the difficul-
ties of the pioneer period in Darlington and the
resource with which the difficulties were met.

"In that pot my Grandmother mixed the herbs which served all the
medicinal requirements of the first settlers. ' '

"In that pot," Jesse said, "my grandmother
mixed the herbs which served all the medicinal
requirements of the first settlers. My grand-
mother had rare skill in the preparation of
these herbs and she was further fortified by a
book of directions in midwifery and the heal-
ing of the sick. Her services were frequently
called on over a wide stretch of country, and, as
there were at that time no bridges across the
numerous streams flowing towards the lake, she
many times had to swim her horse through them
when on her missions of mercy. On one occasion
the grandfather of S. Caldwell, of Hamilton
township, near Cobourg, called upon her to visit
a member of his family who was dangerously ill.

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

The two set out together and arrived at the
river at Port Hope just as night was falling.
Mr. Caldwell had nearly lost his life in cross-
ing the stream in daylight and he feared to
make a fresh venture in the gathering dark-
ness. Not so Mrs. Trull. She boldly drove her

BLAZED TREE

PRIMITIVE LANTERN

horse headlong into the water, breasted the
swelling flood, and on arriving at the other side
lit a pine torch with the flint she carried. By
the fitful flame of the pitch pine, she followed
the blazed trail in the woods for the rest of the

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 17

journey all alone and arrived in time to save
the life of her patient."

Frequent reference is made in these sketches
to "blazed trails." A "blaze" was made with an
axe or draw-knife, and consisted in cutting a
small piece of bark from a green tree. Marks so
made on tree after tree served to show the way
from place to place through the forests.

A most interesting document connected with
the beginning of the Trull settlement is the
record of the early marriage of Luke Burke to
Nancy McBane in the "leafy month" of 1805.
In April, 1807, John Carr was married to Betsy
Woodruff "with the written consent of the
bride's father." In December of the same year
John Burke of Darlington was married to Jane
Brisbin, of Whitby, "with the consent of the
latter 's sister and brother-in-law," these prob-
ably being the legal guardians owing to the
death of the bride's parents. Another curious
light is thrown on the legal requirements con-
nected with the marriage ceremony in the
record of the solemnization of the marriage of
Joseph Gerow to Pamela Trull by Alex.
Fletcher, a magistrate of that day. The record
sets forth that there was not an Anglican min-
ister within eighteen miles, and this fact was the
sanction for the performance of the ceremony
by a Justice of the Peace.

Death as well as Cupid hovered near by. On
a gentle slope on the Trull homestead, many of
the first settlers in Darlington sleep their last
sleep, while the winds sing a nightly requiem
in the tops of the murmuring pines that stand
like sleepless sentinels guarding the hallowed

18 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ground. Near the centre of the plot is a marble
headstone bearing the inscription: "John Trull,
died Feb. 19, 1830, aged 84 years." This marks
the grave of the first of the Trulls of Darling-
ton. Close at hand is the resting-place of " John
Casey Trull, Captain in H. M. S., born Sept. 2,
1795, died May 13, 1880." That is the grave of
the first Trull bom in the township and the
father of Jesse.

And Jesse himself, full of years and rich in
the memory of a long life well spent, has since
been gathered to his fathers. In fact, nearly
all of those who supplied the material for this
book have since died. Although dead they still
speak, not only in the record here given but also
by the work of their hands.

THE LONELY GRAVE BY THE WAYSIDE

We turn now to the movement westward
from the Niagara frontier — a movement which
occurred at the same time as the movement east-
ward along the north shore of Lake Ontario,
led by the Trulls, Burkes, and Conants. This
westward migration was composed largely of
Pennsylvania Dutch, and the first settlements
were formed in what is now the county of Haldi-
mand. Among the Haldimand pioneers were
the Culps, Hoovers, and Hipwells, and it was
from their descendants that most of the facts
given in the following story were obtained.

Tilman Gulp, his wife, and two children ar-
rived in the township of Rainham in 1794, and
Mrs. Dedrick Hoover, a daughter of one of these
children, told part of the story of the journey

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 19

from Pennsylvania as she had learned it from
her mother.

"I have heard my mother say," said Mi's.
Hoover, "that all their belongings on arriving
at the new home, in what was then an unbroken
forest, consisted of a horse, a cow, and half
a bag of flour. The flour, the milk produced by
the cow from the herbage of the forest, and
such game and fish as they were able to secure
furnished their sole means of subsistence until
the first crop was gathered a year later.
During the summer the cow foraged for her-
self in the woods, in the winter the children
broke sprouts from young trees, and these were
fed to the cow as she stood tied to a stump.
In early spring, when provisions were almost ex-
hausted and the new crop was not yet ready
for harvest, grandfather gathered beech leaves,
and these were boiled to make a stew for the
children. The memory of that dish — and it
seemed sweeter than honey to the well-nigh
famished children — lingered with my mother
until the end of her life. Shortly before her
death she murmured, 'Oh, I wish things would
but taste to me as they once did/

"Even at this our people were better off than
some. A couple of boys from a neighbour's house
came over one morning and put on a fire for
grandmother, begging her to cook food for them.
But she had nothing to cook and the lads had to
return as hungry as they came.

"On another occasion, when my mother had a
few loaves of bread in the house, she saw a party
of Indians approaching. She knew that there
would be no food left for her children if the

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Indians once got sight of the loaves, so she has-
tily dropped them into a barrel, put a slab on
top, and placed one of the babies on the slab.
The Indians did not think of disturbing the
child and so the bread was saved."

Mrs. Hoover 's husband, eighty years of age
when this story was told, was also a grandchild
of one of the first settlers. "My grandfather

WINTERING THE COW

"In the winter the children broke sprouts from young
trees, and these were fed to the cow as she stood tied to a
stump. ' '

came in 1798 to spy out the land," said Mr.
Hoover, "and settled here four years later. His
party travelled in covered wagons from York,
in Pennsylvania, and were six weeks on the
way, camping at night in the woods while on the
journey. Many of the rivers crossed on the pil-

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 21

grimagc were without bridges, and in such cases
it was necessary to cut down trees and form
rafts on which the belongings of the party could
be floated across.

"When our people settled here the nearest
mill was at Bridgewater, within sound of
Niagara Falls, and to that mill grists had to be
carried in open boats, the distance equalling
about a third the length of Lake Erie. Land
was the only cheap article in the new settle-
ment. My grandfather traded a horse, saddle,
and bridle for the lot on which he settled."

There was no one in the new settlement with
the medical skill of Grandmother Trull, and, in
answer to a question as to what happened when
people took ill, Mr. Hoover made the grim
answer: " We let them die and then buried
them." Provisions, too, frequently grew scarce,
and on one such occasion Mr. Hoover's uncle
heard splashing in a nearby creek (there is no
creek there now), and he knew that the noise
indicated fish. Two or three of the settlers
promptly went to where the splashing was
heard, caught eleven mullet by hand and soon
relieved the pangs of hunger. "When the first
crop of potatoes and wheat was harvested the
people thought that they were rich," Mr. Hoo-
ver concluded.

One of the first of these Pennsylvania
emigrants was Mother Hipwell. According to
Uriah Rittenhouse, another of the early settlers :
"Her party was eleven weeks in making the
journey by wagon from Pennsylvania to where
they settled on 'The Twenty' in Lincoln. A par-
ticularly sad incident took place during that

22 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

.journey. A baby was taken ill by the way, and
one night while the party camped in the woods,
miles from any human habitation, the little one
died. Next morning, after a simple ceremony,
the small body was buried at the foot of a mighty
oak and the dreary journey was resumed. But
every feature of the surroundings of the lonely
grave was stamped on the mother's memory, and
she declared, to the day of her death, that if she
ever again came near the spot she would be able
to remember the tree beneath the wide-spread-
ing branches of which her child was sheltered in
its last sleep."

But the great oak and its neighbours long
since have fallen beneath the woodman's axe.
Even the stumps have disappeared. Where the
giants of the forest once stood there now may be
orchards of cherry and plum from which other
children gather fruit knowing nothing of the
frail body which lies mingled with the dust
beneath their feet.

There were dangers as well as privations in
the new home amid the primeval forest. Bears
and wolves were everywhere and Mrs. Hoover's
grandmother once put a blanket over the open
doorway to serve as protection against a pack
of wolves. But the privations and dangers of
the early days are now only a rapidly fading
memory. The narrow clearings, which yielded
a scanty subsistence, have been widened to
broad acres of fruitful soil and the doorless
cabins have given place to comfortable brick
homes. One thing yet remains, however, a her-
itage of good neighbourhood, thrift, and honesty.
In the Rainham of to-day, as in the Rainham

PROM SOUTHERN HOMES 23

of the pioneers, the word is the bond, and the
latch string of hospitality ever hangs outside
the door.

INLAND SETTLEMENTS

While the Hipwells and their fellow-travellers
journeyed to Haldimand, another section moved
towards the townships of Markham, Scarboro,
and Pickering. The leader in this movement
was Christian Reesor. In 1801, Christian, ac-
companied by his son Peter, travelled on horse-
back from Franklin county, Pennsylvania, to
examine the country and to bring back inform-
ation. Very soon they traded their horses for
land on the tenth concession, Christian selecting
lot four as the site of his future home. Since
they had parted with their horses, the two had
to return to Pennsylvania on foot. On reach-
ing their old home they set about making ar-
rangements for their final journey to the wilder-
ness of the north. Owing to delays in selling
their Pennsylvania holdings and packing up, it
was not until 1804 that the journey to Canada
was begun. Accompanying Christian on this
occasion were four sons — Peter, John, Abraham,
and Christian, Jr. From these the Canadian
Reesor connection of to-day is descended. John,
one of the four, had fifteen children and three
of these children had in turn families of nine,
ten, and fourteen respectively.

From Noah Reesor, a son of Peter, I obtained
some particulars of the Reesor migrations from
Pennsylvania to Markham. "I believe," this
descendant of the pioneers stated, "that our
people spent six weeks on the journey. The

party travelled in wagons and camped wher-
ever night overtook them. They drove their
cows with them, the animals feeding by the
wayside and being milked night and morning.
The butter was churned in the wagons, the vibra-
tion of the rude vehicles assisting in the work
of churning. After the family had fairly settled
down in Markham, and the first crop was har-
vested, the grain was carried on horseback over
bush trails to Toronto to be ground into flour.
In the 'summerless year,' the awful year of
1816, almost all the grain was frozen and what
little was saved was gathered by men wearing
overcoats as a protection against the cold."

Josephus Reesor, a son of Peter, in telling of
how the original settlers obtained their first
food, said that they followed the cattle to the
woods. Any plants the tops of which were eaten
by the cows the settlers concluded were safe for
human food and the roots were dug up to make
a stew for the table. Thus, by trusting to the
instinct of the dumb brutes, they avoided poison-
ous herbs. "There was," he said, "only one
store in Toronto at that early period and my
father rode there and back to purchase supplies.
Obtaining a water supply was another problem.
Wells were to be found on only a few farms and
in some instances water was obtained from pools
formed by falling rain. Of at least one kind of
food there was an ample supply. Large salmon
could then be caught in the River Rouge at
Cedar Grove."

The father of William Armstrong, a connec-
tion of the Reesors by marriage, planted the
first orchard in the settlement. The trees were

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 25

seedlings and their fruit furnished a welcome
addition to table supplies over a large part of
Scarboro and Markham.

The first stone house in the township of Mark-
ham was erected on lot four of the ninth in the
'thirties, and a bank barn was put up on the
same place about the same time. The timbers
for the barn were cut from pine that yielded
logs fourteen inches in diameter and forty feet
in length, and they were all hewed by one of the
Reesors with a broad-axe.

One of the relics of the early days is a trunk
covered with deer-skin. Connected with that
trunk is a sad story, paralleling that of the
child buried beneath the wide-spreading oak
by the party of Haldimand pioneers. This
trunk belonged to the third Christian, a grand-
son of the founder of the Reesor settlement in
York. This third Christian accompanied his
father to the old home in Pennsylvania in 1826.
The young man was seized with fever on the
return journey and died at Lewiston. The
father could not leave his dead to rest among
strangers and so made a rude coffin of boards,
and, with his dead son as companion, made the
rest of the journey to the now desolate home in
the forest. There the body lies among his own
kindred in the little cemetery on the hillside
at Cedar Grove. In that cemetery beneath sweet-
smelling locusts, twenty years ago I counted ten
graves in a group, all Reesors with the excep-
tion of one Wheeler, a connection by marriage.

But the descendants of those who are gone
are as the sands of the seashore. At Locust Hill
Creamery, when the present century was young,

26 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

a third of the patrons were Reesors; two-thirds
of those who patronized the local smithy at the
same time were also Reesors; within a day's
travel were five hundred of the same name, and
with their connections in the Hoovers, the
James', the Armstrongs and others, they ran
into the thousands in the county of York alone.
There are still more in the old home in Pennsyl-
vania; and men of the name are found almost all
the way from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson
Bay, and from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific.
Wherever in Canada the Reesor name is known
it is held in honour and respect.

For some further particulars of the Mennon-
ite settlements in Markham and adjoining town-
ships I am indebted to what was told me in 1898
by John Koch, another descendant of those who
made the great trek from Pennsylvania in the
beginning of the last century.

"Delegates were first sent to select land for
the new settlement," Mr. Koch said, "and after
these preliminary arrangements had been com-
pleted, stock was gathered together, goods and
chattels were piled in wagons, and then the pil-
grimage to the northland began. In that part
of the United States which our ancestors trav-
ersed, the roads were not bad, but once the fron-
tier was passed real hardship commenced.
Roads had to be cut through the bush; livers
forded by the plunging horses; and, in going
down some of the steep hills, logs had to be
hitched to the wagons to prevent them from run-
ning over the animals.

"Nor did hardships end when our people
reached their new home. Rather were these

FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 27

increased. Toronto, twenty miles distant, was
the nearest point at which groceries could be ob-
tained and a trip there occupied three days, the
nights being spent in such shelter as the forest
afforded. In Toronto itself you could almost
have drowned a horse in the mud holes on some
of the streets. ' '

Mr. Sherk, one of the early settlers, teamed
cordwood to Toronto, which he sold at one dol-
lar and a half per cord. He hauled a cord and a
half at a time, starting long before daylight and
not getting home until late at night. The
women worked quite as hard as the men. They
rose at four in the morning to spin flax before
breakfast, and after supper, spinning was
resumed and continued until nine or ten at night.
From the flax was made all the clothing many
of the first settlers had to wear both winter and
summer. In order to save shoe leather people
went barefooted while in the house in winter
and barefooted everywhere in summer. The
first shoes worn in summer by one of the pion-
eers were a pair loaned him by his grandmother.

Shortly after the settlement was formed,
death came to a little child in the Sherk home-
stead. There did not seem to be, anywhere in the
forest, an opening large enough to make room
even for the body of a child. A small clearing
on a hillside belonging to a neighbour on the
fourth of Markham was at last discovered and
the privilege was requested of using part of
this as a resting-place for the dead. The request
was granted, and this, the first burial, took place
on the fourth of Markham in what is believed to
be the oldest cemetery in the township.

28 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

SPINNING FLAX

' ' The women worked quite as hard as the men. They rose
at four in the morning to spin, and after supper, continued
until nine or ten."

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE

GRINDING CORN IN A HOLLOW STUMP

While the last century was still young, im-
migrants from beyond the seas were attracted
to Canada. For many interesting stories of the
immigrants of that period I am indebted to Wal-
ter Riddell, father of Judge Riddell of Toronto.
Not only had he a fund of information furnished
him by his neighbours, but his own memory went
back to the early days of Central Ontario.

When Mr. Riddell came to Canada from Dum-
fries in 1823, he crossed the Atlantic on a two
hundred ton sailing ship, the Whitekaven, and
was seven weeks and two days in making the
voyage to Quebec. From Quebec to Montreal
the journey was continued by steamer and from
Montreal to Prescott in a ''Durham boat."1
Passengers who had a few shillings to spare
could obtain sleeping quarters in the cubby holes
forward or aft, while those who could not pay
slept in the open space in the centre. When the
wind favoured and there was no current, such
boats were driven by sails; over shallows they
were " poled" along by the voyageurs; and up
the Long Sault they were hauled by thirteen
yoke of oxen and a team of horses walking on

1A Durham boat was about thirty feet long with an
enclosed space at each end.

30 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 31

the bank. From Prescott to Cobourg the jour-
ney was made by steamer.

"At that time," said Mr. Riddell, "William
Weller ran a stage line from Kingston to
Toronto. During the summer, while boats were
running, there was little business for the stage,
and the horses were turned out to pasture, but in
winter the owners of horse transport did a ca-
pacity business.

"The first considerable influx from the old
land began about 1820. Among the earliest
arrivals from that quarter were the Coverts,
Jeffreys, Wades, Plews, Spears, Dales, McCor-
micks, Powells, and Rowes. When this migra-
tion was at its height in the thirties, Rice Lake
Road was a stirring highway. Immigrants
landed at Cobourg and were carried over the
road to Sully on Rice Lake and from there by
open boats to the country further north. Before
the railway was built to Harwood on Rice Lake,
large quantities of flour, lumber, and other sup-
plies were hauled over the same road to Cobourg
for shipment across Lake Ontario to the
American market.

"The first store in Cobourg was built by Elias
Jones in 1802. Mr. Jones later on built the
first grist-mill in the township of Haldimand.
The first wagon in the township was made by
Elijah Buck about 1808. Oliver Stanton, born
about the first year of the last century, is
said to have been the first white child to see the
light of day in Haldimand township.

"The first settlers in the township ground
their corn by pounding it in a hollow stump or
log, and such as had wheat were obliged to take

32 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

it by boat to Kingston to be made into flour. On
one occasion boats carrying grain were driven
into Presqu'isle by a storm and frozen up there
for the winter. During the winter season it was
a common thing for a settler to have to carry
flour on his back for twenty or thirty miles
through the woods.

"The year 1816 was a particularly trying one
on the young settlement as there was frost
every month in the year. None of the corn
ripened and the whole community was on short
rations. Even at a much later date serious
hardships were suffered, the springs of 1836 and
1843 being particularly trying. At that time
most of the farm animals, save horses, were
sheltered in the lee of strawstacks, and, as shel-
ter and feed were both scarce, cattle died by the
hundreds.

"As soon as a young man had erected his
shack in the woods he was considered ready for
marriage, and the bridal tour was made from
the parental home of the bride over a blazed
trail to the new abode. In the home the Bible
was read by the flickering blaze of a pine knot,
as even candles were unknown to the first set-
tlers. Preachers travelled on horseback and
carried their belongings in a saddle-bag. Some-
times, when night overtook them in the woods,
they slept in the shelter of an overhanging pine.
When a preacher arrived in a settlement, mes-
sengers were sent far and wide to announce that
service would be held in a certain home.

"It was difficult to obtain teachers of any
kind, and those chosen were generally men who
were unable or unwilling to do any other kind

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 33

of work. Payment for teaching was made by
the parents, the charge never being less than
two dollars per quarter for each child sent
to school.

" Municipal taxation in 1826 was at the rate
of a penny in the pound for district purposes
and a fourth of a penny for the services of the
district's representative in the Legislature.
The assessment varied according to the charac-
ter of the house, whether it was built of squared

A ONE ROOM SCHOOL IN THE EARLY DATS

"Unless the teacher was a man of nerve and resolution he had little
chance of maintaining order in the schoolroom."

log, frame, brick, or stone. The highest tax
paid by one person in that year was fifteen dol-
lars and thirty-seven cents and the lowest, three
cents. Twenty-eight ratepayers paid eight
cents or less.

"Everything in the way of clothing was man-
ufactured at home. Linen clothing was made
from flax grown on the farm, and home-grown

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

wool was transformed into woolen clothing; all
the operations from sheep-shearing and flax-
pulling to spinning and weaving being carried
out on the farm. Tools and implements used in
cultivating the land and harvesting the crops
were made, for the most part, either by the
farmers themselves or by local blacksmiths.
Wooden harrows were fashioned in the shape of

WOODEN HARROWS IN THE SHAPE OF A "v"

a V so that they would more readily pass
between stumps, and the teeth were slanted
backwards to facilitate passing over roots.
Iron forks and hoes were made by local
blacksmiths, and plows of the same mater-
ial were also the product of township smiths.

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 35

These plows had single handles with cross-
bars to hold them by. The first plow of
the form now in use was called the 'Dutcher' and
was made in Toronto, the 'Norton' plow follow-
ing soon afterwards. The 'Dutcher' cost from
six to eight dollars and was made of cast metal.
Nearly all the local blacksmiths tried their hand
at making the new kind of plow, but the best was
made by John Newton of Cobourg. It cost
twenty dollars as compared with fifty dollars for
one imported from Scotland. The 'Lapfurrow,'
which sold for seven dollars, was the first

SELF-RAKING REAPER

American plow imported. The first reaper in
the neighbourhood, and I believe the first in the
province, was imported from Rochester by Dan-
iel McKeyes in 1843. The horses used in oper-
ating it were driven tandem and a man stood
on the platform to throw off the sheaves. This
reaper would cut twelve acres in a day and did
as good work, so far as cutting was concerned,
as the self-binders of to-dav. The McCormack

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

reaper, which appeared in 1847, was too light.
Helm & Son of Cobourg began making reapers
about 1848 and secured first prize for their
machine at the Provincial Exhibition. In 1860,
I was judge at Dundas in a competition between
self-raking reapers, but these did not prove suc-
cessful. The Marsh harvester, first used in
1868, worked well in light grain, but in a heavy
crop the two men who stood on the platform to
bind could not keep up with the cutting. The
first self-binder I saw was at a show at Roches-

LOADING THE POWER

"When moved from one farm to another the horse power
was loaded on the front wheels of the wagon first and the
thresher on top of that. ' '

ter in 1868. The mowing-machine did not ap-
pear until 1850 or 1852. The first I saw was
made by Ketchum of Buffalo and cost one hun-
dred dollars. It was heavy on horses and hard
to manage. 'Ball's Ohio,' which was put on the
market soon afterwards, was long a favourite.

"The revolving wooden horse-rake was intro-
duced about 1840 or 1841, the first one in our sec-

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 37

tion being used on Angus Crawford's place. It
sold at seven or eight dollars, and I doubt if a
greater labour-saver was ever produced at
less cost.

"The first threshing-machine in our neigh-
bourhood made its appearance in 1832. When
moved from one farm to another the horse pow-
er was loaded on the front wheels of the wagon
first and the thresher on top of that. Then the
reach and front wheels of the wagon were con-
nected up with the rear wheels and the outfit

REVOLVING RAKE

was ready to move. When the thresher was in
operation the grain was threshed by the cylin-
der beating the heads against the bottom of the
machine. Grain and straw came out together,
and one hundred bushels was a day's run, and
the work was wonderfully well done. The own-
er of the outfit received every fifteenth bushel
for his toll. John Livingstone introduced the
Pitt separator in 1842, and all threshing-

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

machines that came later were simply improved
Pitts.

'There were no stoves in the early days and
most of the fireplaces were built of a mixture of
clay and straw. In the chimney was placed a
cross-bar of wood or iron, and from this were
hung the pots and kettles used in cooking. The
pots were for cooking potatoes or pork and the
kettles for baking bread. These kettles were
usually about two feet in diameter, with an iron
lid, and coals were placed above and below for

HUSKING BEE

' ' If one of the lads found a big red ear of corn he had
the privilege of kissing the lass next to him, and it is sur-
prising how many big red ears were found. ' '

baking. In some places brick or clay ovens were
built outside the house.

'But/' continued Mr. Riddell, "despite all
the hardships of those days, and even if the lar-
der was not always too well filled, they were the
happiest period in our lives. Neighbours were
always welcome in each other's homes to what-
ever the board could provide. We had our sim-

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 39

pie pleasures, too, oue of these being found in the
'husking bee'. At these bees lads and lassies
occupied alternate seats. If one of the lads
found a big red ear of corn he had the privilege
of kissing the lass next to him, and it is sur-
prising how many big red ears were found. The
husking bee, held in the evening, was usually
preceded by a quilting bee in the afternoon,
which was attended by women only, the men
coming later for the husking. The latter was fol-
lowed still later by a dance at which home made
cheese, cake, and punch were served. (Whiskey
was then only twenty-five cents a gallon.) How
late did we keep it up I That depended on the
company and the state of the roads, but the boys
generally managed to get to bed by midnight
after first seeing the girls home. John Grieves '
place, lot twenty-seven on the second of Haldi-
mand, was a favourite place for these old-time
social gatherings."

SUING FOR TRADE

Henry Elliott, long known as "The Father of
Hampton " was one of numerous Devonshire folk
who settled in Durham county in the first half
of the past century.

Born shortly after Trafalgar, Mr. Elliott sailed
for Canada on the Boline, in 1831. The size
of the ship can be imagined from Mr. Elliott's
statement that her sixty-one passengers crowded
her to the limit. Among the passengers were
Rev. J. Whitlock, at one time stationed at Port
Perry; Richard Foley, whose descendants for
years lived west of Bowmanville; and Thomas

40 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Courtice, whose family name was taken for a
roadside hamlet east oi' Oshawa, where many of
the connection still reside.

Leaving England on the fourth of May, the
Boline reached Prince Edward Island on the
fifth of June, and after spending ten days there
in discharging part of her passengers and
freight, she arrived at Quebec ten or twelve
days later. From Quebec, Mr. Elliott was car-
ried by the usual mode of conveyance at the
time as far as Kingston, and from Kingston to
Port Hope the passage was made by steamer.
As there was then no dock at Port Hope, the
passengers for that point were landed in a barge
known as the Red Rover. This barge was own-
ed by an uncle of Dr. Mitchell who afterwards
practised medicine at Enniskillen.

While at Port Hope, Mr. Elliott worked for
a time in a mill owned by John Brown. "Mr.
Brown," said Mr. Elliott, " owned a store as well
as a mill and he adopted a novel method of
bringing business to the store. When he heard
of anyone in the back country of Clarke, Cart-
wright, or Manvers who was not buying at his
store, and whose business was worth having, he
promptly entered suit against the prospect for
an imaginary bill. The next stage, of course,
was a call at the store, in a state of indignation,
by the party sued.

" 'What do mean by suing me?' the indig-
nant one would ask. 'I don't owe you any
money. '

" 'Of course you don't. I only sued so as to
bring you out where I could see you!'

"The caller as a rule saw the humour in the

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 41

situation. In any case he enjoyed the royal
entertainment offered him, and the usual result
was that he became a friend of Brown and a
customer at his store."

In 1840, Mr. Elliott decided to establish a mill-
ing business of his own at Hampton. There was
not a house in the place at the time, merely the
frame for a mill. Mr. Elliott purchased this,
at the same time erecting a shanty for his own
residence, thus giving the place its first name,

IMPROVISED SLED

WASHING SHEEP

" Shanty town." The capacity of the mill, when
it was completed, was only from forty to fifty
bushels per day.

"Customers for the new mill came not only
from the neighbourhood but from Cartwright
and Manvers," said Mr. Elliott when telling his
story in May, 1899. "There was then hardly a

42 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

horse in the whole surrounding country and
oxen were used to haul the grain. Some did not
have even a wagon, and in that case a sapling
cut from the bush was made use of. The butt
was fastened to the yoke and the crotched
end allowed to trail on the ground. On this
crotch a board platform was nailed and the grain
placed on that. With such primitive convey-
ances the settlers often drove fifteen or twenty
miles, spending two days going and coming, and
sleeping in the mill at night while waiting for
their grists.

" About the time I established the mill John
Farley obtained eight hundred acres, with fifty
cleared, in exchange for a frame tavern six miles
west of Port Hope. Dr. Ormiston, the well-
known Presbyterian divine of his day, 'logged
his way through college' by helping to clear
his uncle's farm. Later on a boom struck
Hampton and quarter-acre village lots sold for
as much as three hundred and fifty dollars; but
the boom collapsed in the crash of the 'fifties,
and forty years later these same lots could have
been bought for thirty-five dollars."

Hampton is still, however, a beautiful little
village and Hampton people have honoured
themselves by creating one of the most attrac-
tive parks to be found in rural Ontario as a
memorial to the founder of the village, one who
served well his day and generation.

Durham County has been not inaptly describ-
ed by some enthusiastic Durhamites as "the
mother of factories." Nor is the claim without
basis. The McLaughlin motor plant in Oshawa
owes its origin to a little shop erected by the

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 43

first of the McLaughlins at the cross-roads vil-
lage of Enniskillen, a shop for making wagons
and sleighs, one such as might be found in al-
most any little hamlet in Ontario at that time.

Mr. Allin, to whose memory I am indebted
for the story of the Millerites, given in a subse-
quent chapter,1 told me, too, that he remembered

SINGLE-HANDED PLOW WITH CROSSBAR

PLOW WITH WOODEN BEAM

when the shop of Hart A Massey's father, in
Newcastle, gave employment to just three per-
sons. That was the period when owners of lit-
tle smithies all over the province were turning

1. See page 318 et seq.

44 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

their minds to the development of new forms of
labour-saving implements for the farm. After
these inventions had begun to take shape, field
contests between rival builders of reapers pro-
vided excitement almost equalling that caused
by the Millerites.

As the Massey factory forged ahead, New-
castle, a peaceful enough village to-day, began to
assume metropolitan airs, at one time boast-
ing no fewer than three papers. "One of the
Newcastle journals of that time/' Mr. Allin said,
"was published by Calvin H. Powers. Mr.
Powers was a gifted speaker as well as a con-
vincing writer. He was a leading figure in elec-
toral contests waged by Munro, who represented
West Durham before the time of Edward Blake.
Powers afterwards removed to the Western
States and became a still more prominent figure
in politics there. He gave Abraham Lincoln
able assistance in his first Presidential cam-
paign and was afterwards elected Governor
of Minnesota. ' '

The numerous branches of West Durham fam-
ilies were then as now widely scattered in
America and frequently distant relatives met in
unexpected ways. Concerning the Allin connec-
tion, Reeve Frank Allin of Clark told me: "A
brother of mine moved to California and some
time after his arrival there, simply because of
his name, he was invited to an Allin family
picnic in that State. In the course of conversa-
tion it was discovered that the California Allins
were a branch of our common connection in
England and that they were descended from an
Allin who had moved to California about the

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 45

same time that the first of the Allins migrated
from England to Canada."

ACTIVE AT NINETY-TWO

The most remarkable feature connected with
the following story is that, although told me so
recently as 1920, the narrator remembered when
the howling of the wolves could still be heard in
the swamp between Lake Ontario and where
the Kingston Road cuts through the little village
of Newtonville, in the county of Durham.

Samuel Jones, from whom the story was ob-
tained, was only eight years short of the cen-
tury mark at the time of telling it. But time
had dealt lightly with this veteran. He was
at work in his garden, in the afternoon of a hot
August day, when the interview began. As we
walked towards the house his step was as firm as
that of a well-preserved man of fifty, and I
found him able to read fine print without the
aid of glasses. Of all those whose stories are
told in these pages none had a clearer recollec-
tion of the events, not only of recent occurrence,
but of the remote past. Add to this the fact that
Mr. Jones was born on the farm on which I met
him and the interest of the information is still
more enhanced.

"Even within my recollection," Mr. Jones in-
formed me, " Kingston Road was little more
than a path through the bush. I can remember
when our grists had to be carried to Port Hope,
and in the time of my father, settlers about New-
tonville, and from as far back as Omemee, went
all the way to Kingston to have their grain made

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

>. .-

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 47

into flour. As a lad, when going after our cows,
1 have heard wolves howling in the swamp at
the lower end of our place near the lake front.
One night, on a farm owned by a man named
Charters on the fifth concession of Clarke,
wolves tried to tear a hole in the roof of a shed
in which sheep were sheltered. I have speared
salmon in Drury Creek, which crosses the farm
of John Barrie; a creek that is now little more
than a succession of puddles. It was a common
thing for settlers then to take a couple of barrels
of salmon from the lake in a night.

"I have seen the sky darkened by the flight of
wild pigeons, and, when these alighted in
myriads on the ground to feed, it seemed as if
the surface of the earth was heaving as they
moved about. Indians came regularly in spring
to make baskets in the adjoining woods, baskets
that were traded to the settlers for provisions.

"I have seen the sickle give place to the
cradle, the cradle to the reaper, and the reaper
to the self-binder. Intermediate between the
sickle and the cradle was a scythe with a hole
bored in the centre of the blade and connected
with the snath by a wire 'hauled taut.' With
that tool an expert could lay a swath as neatly
as swaths were afterwards laid by a cradle.

"Our first cradle, called the 'Grape Vine,'
was made by Asa Davis, at Newcastle. It was
a clumsy implement, but Joseph Moulton once
cut six acres of rye with it in a day. Our first
reaper was 'The Woods,' invented by a man of
that name, and made at Newcastle by the first
of the Masseys. That was, in my opinion, the
best reaper ever made.

"Quite early in my time a wooden horse-rake
was developed. When the rake was full, it could
be revolved on its axle and the rakings dumped.
The same implement was used in pulling peas.
One man thought he would improve on this and

built a steel rake of the
same pattern ; but, when
this was used in pea har-
vesting, almost as much

,'•'• '•s-i*Z'r-.T tmX/i t/i,:mx\ <<•
I.IMIJ " i^-'-J^^^-^ './;,™

SICKLE

HARVESTING WITH CRADLE

grain was threshed out as was gathered in
the pods.

* * The first threshing-machine in the neighbour-
hood consisted of little more than a cylinder, and
the threshed straw had to be raked away by

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 49

hand. I spent one winter operating this
threshing outfit. Our practice, on arriving at
a farm at night, was to break the crust on the
sno'iv where the horse-power was to be placed,
and then to let the power down to solid ground.
Snow was next packed around the machine and
water poured on the snow. By morning the
horse-power would be frozen solidly in place and
the necessity of staking avoided.

" Before we bought our first fanning-mill my
father cleaned his grain by laying a sheet on the
ground and pouring out the grain from a
pail held at an elevation, the wind being relied
on to blow away the chaff.

"As grain production increased. Port Granby
became an important shipping point, and I have
seen as much as ten thousand bushels of barley
loaded into waiting schooners in a single day.
To-day the Port is not even a remains. The
piers rotted away years ago and stone-hookers
carried off the stone used in filling the cribs.

"Other ' industries' came with increased pro-
duction. Distilleries were in my youth about
as numerous as schoolhouses are now. There
was a distillery in Newtonville, another between
Bowmanville and Newcastle, and a third at Port
Granby. With so many stills in operation,
drunkenness was rife. The first counter influ-
ence was that exercised by Methodist missionar-
ies who covered the country on horseback. The
missionaries I best remember were Douse and
Van Dusen.

"There was great excitement, and something
more than excitement, in connection with early
elections. Newtonville had the one poll for the

50 THE PIONEERS1 OF OLD ONTARIO

riding and voting was continued for several
days. On one occasion rival factions, each led
by banners and fife and drum bands, met inuthe
middle of the road. What might have been an-
ticipated happened; banners were torn to rib-
bons, drums smashed, and some heads were
cracked as well. Something worse occurred on
one occasion, when one man voted, as another
thought, the wrong way. The offender was
struck on the neck with a club and dropped
dead, and the 'Cavan Blazers'1 prevented the
immediate arrest of the offender."

The story of Mr. Jones' father's selection of
a lot is as interesting in its way as is a story
told by the Honourable Manning Doherty of the
refusal of his great grandfather to accept a farm
located at the corner of Queen and Yonge
Streets, Toronto. The first of the Jones family
had secured the location on which the town of
Ornemee stands; but when he found this could
be reached only by travelling over several
miles of blazed trail, he traded the lot for four-
teen bushels of wheat and bought lot eight, on
the first of Clarke, which was then part of the
Clergy Reserves. Years afterwards he was
offered two hundred acres near by for one hun-
dred dollars, but, although having ample funds,
lie refused to accept the offer. The property
afterwards sold for one hundred dollars an acre.
Dame Fortune, fickle jade though she is, and
although her offers had been twice spurned—
once at Omemee and again later on — would not
be wholly denied. Part of the Jones homestead
forms a section of the site of the village of

I See Page 320 et »eq.

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 51

Newtonville, and there has, therefore, been some
unearned increment in that case.

The first house on the Jones homestead was
of log, but this was soon replaced by a stone
structure. Even that was grey with age when
this story was told, although the narrator of
over fourscore and ten, born before the stone
house was erected, was still vigorous in mind
and body. On the same homestead the first
orchard in the neighbourhood was planted, and

OLD FAMILY PLOT

"In the centre are three trees, a pine, a basswood, and a walnut.
Here lie buried eight members of the family of William Cornell."

one of the trees, a Pumpkin Sweet, over one
hundred years old, was bearing fruit when I
was there.

In company with one of the third generation
of the family I mounted the hill on which the
village cemetery is located, and there I saw, what
I had observed in countless other cemeteries,
where the pioneers of the settlement lie. On the

52 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

stones above the graves were the words "native
of— ' ' with the name of the English village, Scot-
tish glen, or Irish valley, in which those who
have passed away were born. On returning to
the Jones home, the man whose memory covered
well nigh a century of time told me that fully
two-thirds of the names I had seen are no longer
heard in the township of Clarke. The first
of those bearing the names have passed beyond
the line dividing time from eternity. The de-
scendants are more widely scattered than "The
Graves of a Household." Why is it that the
place of birth, so fondly remembered by the
first generation, as evidenced by the inscriptions
on the headstones in the old cemetery, has failed
to hold the children born here beneath the shade
of majestic pines and amid the autumn glories
of broad-leaved maples?

PUTTING HIMSELF ON RATIONS

Samuel Billings, living north of Orono at
the time of my visit, also told of the early days
in Clarke.

"Our first farm," he said, "a mile south of
Orono, was purchased about 1831, from the Hon-
ourable Peter Jackson of Toronto at three dol-
lars per acre. Ten years later we moved to our
present farm, four miles north of Orono. This
we purchased from Jeremiah Orser, Port Perry,
for eight hundred and fifty dollars. Even at
that comparatively late date we had to cut
a road for half a mile through the bush to reach
the place. When we first came to Clarke there
was only one house, Dr. Herriman's, in the

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 53

neighbourhood. Charles Bowman, after whom
the town was named, owned a grist-mill at
Bowmanville. The late Honourable John Simp-
son was an adopted son of Bowman. Abraham
Butterfield, Charles and John Bellwoods, John
Middleton, R. W. Robson, and E. Gifford were
among those who settled along the front of the
township about the time we came in.

" Just south of Orono was a little prairie that
had apparently formed over an old beaver dam.
I have seen a dozen deer sunning themselves
there at one time. Indians came here from as
far away as the Credit to hunt them, and one
halfbreed in a party killed ten deer in one day."

Thomas Thornton, father of C. J. Thornton,
ex.-M.P., and one of the Thornton-Powers con-
nection, also contributed to these Clarke remin-
iscences. Mr. Thornton, born in Yorkshire, as
a boy of six came to Canada with his father in
the 'twenties of the last century. He was thir-
teen weeks and three days in crossing the Atlan-
tic, and three weeks more were spent on the
journey by Durham boats between Quebec and
Montreal. "And," Mr. Thornton told me, as
we sat on his porch in Orono, twenty-three
years ago, "it rained on every one of those
twenty-one days, save three." That certainly
was no pleasure trip for a boy of six. In 1835,
while still a lad, Mr. Thornton went to live with
Thomas Best on the eighth of Clarke. "On one
occasion," he said, "when we required to have
some wheat ground, and having no horse of our
own, it was necessary to pack the grain to a
neighbour's place. We divided it into four bags,
and Best and I carried two bags for a distance

54 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

and then went back for the other two, and so on,
each carrying two bags alternately until we had
covered the two miles between our place and
Bill Livingstone's. Then Bill teamed the grain
to Bowmanville to be ground for us. At that
time there were only three horses in the town-
ship north of the sixth concession.

"When Mr. Best first moved to his farm, his
worldly possessions consisted of three pigs, an
axe, and what he considered sufficient pork,
flour, and potatoes to see him through until next
harvest. During the following May he began
to fear that pork and potatoes were going to run
short and he decided to apportion what remain-
ed to make sure of having at least some for each
day until a new supply came in. He weighed
a pound of pork, cut it into slices, counted the
slices and from this calculated how many slices
per day his remaining stock would allow him.
Next he filled a half-bushel measure with pota-
toes and counted the number of potatoes per
day he could afford for each meal. In this way
he managed to keep up a daily supply until new
sources were available. In order to hasten the
fattening of the pigs I had to go to the bush and
hunt cow cabbage to feed them. And I assure
you fattening the kind of pigs we had then, by
the means described, was no picnic. The pigs
were of the kind that required a knot in their
tails to prevent them from slipping through a
hole in the fence.

"In the summer of 'thirty-seven, bears were
almost as thick as blackberries, and the tracks
left by wolves were as common as sheep tracks
are now. One morning when I was trying to

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 55

kindle a fire under a sugar kettle in the bush on
lot twenty-seven on the eighth concession I look-
ed up and saw a wolf eight feet away. He
moved off, and you may be sure I made no
effort to interfere with his going. One evening,
again, when I was sitting up with a girl (we
were all boys once) I heard wolves howling in
the bush and suggested to the girl's father that
the sheep had better be brought in. He said I
might go after them if I liked, and I did so.
Meantime the owner of the sheep remained com-
fortably in bed. "

CHILDREN AND SHEEP IN THE CELLAR

When I spent a few days along the St. Law-
rence, between Prescott and Cornwall, in the fall
of 1899, there was still living a man who as an in-
fant was present when the battle of Chrysler's
Farm was fought in November, 1813. There
were a number in the neighbourhood who had
heard stories of the battle from parents or
grandparents and almost every home held
mementos of the War of 1812-15.

Elias Cook, a brother of H. H. Cook, the
political rival of D 'Alton McCarthy in North
Simcoe in the 'eighties, was a year old when the
American army landed on the north shore of the
river and seized for headquarters the tavern
kept by his parents. A mile and a half west-
ward the Chrysler homestead served as head-
quarters for the British, and midway between
was the Casselman House, that was still stand-
ing when I was there.

"The whole thing came upon us so quickly,"

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 57

Mr. Cook told me, "that 110 time was allowed
for the women and children to escape, and my
mother hustled me into the cellar for protection
from the cannon balls that British gunboats in
the river began throwing at the American head-
quarters. "

Nelson Casselman, a grandson of the Cassel-
man who held the homestead in 1813, showed me
the cellar in which his grandmother hid the
sheep and the little Casselmans together. "The
Americans/' said Mr. Casselman, "took the
family's horses for transport, killed the cows for
beef, and made soup for the officers' mess from
the chickens."

But the loss of horses was not all one-sided.
After the battle, a couple of American horsemen
on rearguard duty were suddenly confronted by
a man named Adams and ordered to surrender.
The Americans, believing the musket which
Adams held could carry further than their pis-
tols and that his bayonet was more dangerous
than their swords, promptly complied. Adams
then marched his prisoners back to the British
commander, who was so pleased with the
exploit that he told Adams to keep the horses,
and for years afterwards the animals were used
in his farm work. The joke was on the Amer-
icans ; Adams had not so much as a single charge
for his gun when he captured his two prisoners.

After the battle a number of American
wounded were carried into the Casselman home,
one of these an old man. Mr. Casselman told me
the story of his death as he had heard it from
his parents. "He was an old man whose sands
of life were nearly run out in any case. As the

58 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

setting sun changed the St. Lawrence into a rib-
bon of gold his eyes turned toward the south and
he said lie would die in peace if he could but
see the children and grandchildren who once
played about his knee. But death came with
the night and next morning his body was
laid, with those of other American dead, in a
trench east of the house, where our orchard was
afterwards planted."

Mr. Cook was able to point out the exact pos-
ition of an American four-gun battery, as
the log and earth breastworks still remained
until he himself removed them in the
'seventies to place the ground under cultivation.
At the base of the Casselman barn, which was
standing when the battle was fought, I was
shown a round hole in a board. The hole, ac-
cording to tradition, was made by a British
round-shot that killed three Americans. The
Casselman of 1813 afterwards dug up the ball
from where it had buried itself in the ground
and it was still preserved hi the Casselman home
at the time of my visit. In the Cook home I saw
what looked like a carpet ball (painted red,
white, and blue) but which, Mr. Cook told me,
was a cannon-shot fired at the house by one
of the British gunboats in the river. Mr.
Casselman had a musket his grandfather found
hidden in a strawstack after the battle. He
thought it had been left there by an American,
but as the piece bore the Tower mark this was
hardly possible unless the weapon had been cap-
tured from the British in a previous engage-
ment. Bullets were dug up by the hundred in
the years following the battle, a few being found

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE r>9

at times right up to the close of the last century.
Another relic of the past was a small box that-
had been left by Lieutenant Ingalls of the
British forces, who was on guard at the Cook
place for some time after the battle.

EARLY WEAPONS

CANDLE MOULD

The most interesting of all the reminders of
the past was the Casselman home itself. The
heavy beams supporting the floor had been hewn
out of solid logs with a broad-axe one hundred
years before my visit. The lumber forming the
floor had been whipsawed by the grandfathei-

of Nelson Casselman and his neighbours. At one
end of the main room was a stone fireplace, nine
feet wide by four feet deep, and five feet high;
but this had been bricked up and was no longer
visible. "I can remember, though, when all our
cooking was done in that fireplace, " said Mr.
Casselman.

The Cook tavern of 1813 was displaced in the
'twenties by an imposing brick structure, which
at one time served as the half-way house be-
tween Montreal and Kingston. Even the inter-
ior walls were of brick. "The mortar used in
laying those bricks," Mr. Cook told me, "was
made from lime burned on the premises. The
stones from which the lime was burned were
broken by dropping on them twenty-four-pound
cannon balls that had been picked up from the
field of battle.

"In the old staging days the tavern was a
lively place. I have seen in the yard at one
time four stage coaches with horses ready to
move. Priests and bishops, lawyers and mer-
chants were among the guests, and beds were
set as close together as that," said Mr. Cook
placing his outstretched palms side by side.
"But it was when the lumbermen dropped off
on their way up or down the river that things
really did liven up. As many as two hundred
of these were about the house at one time with
enough fiddles to furnish music for the whole
party. British officers and soldiers stopped
there, too, on the way to or from Kingston. On
one occasion a couple of officers had ten thou-
sand dollars in coin with which to pay the troops
at Kingston and other posts. The officers, when

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 61

going to bed, put the coin on the window-sill as
they were afraid the weight would break
through the floor. They did not even lock the
windows, but a sentry stood outside the door
and other soldiers slept in the yard."

The country about Prescott was the scene of
stirring events at a later date. I visited "The
Windmill," with its memories of 'Thirty-Seven.
This structure, built of stone, one hundred feet
in circumference, sixty feet high, and with walls
three feet thick was no mean fortress at the time
of the Rebellion of 1837.

"My father was engaged in the attack on the
raiders who had seized the windmill," David
Reid told me. "He said that even the big guns
brought from Kingston were incapable of dam-
aging the building. The stones had been set in
wedge-shape and the pounding of the artillery
seemed but to drive them more firmly into
place."

George Heck, who was on service at the
time of the attack, said that some of the
buildings near the windmill were set on fire.
One of these was a bakery, and a couple of the
enemy had taken shelter in the oven. Their
bodies, burned to a crisp, were found after the
action."

The man who told of this incident was a
grandson of Barbara Heck, the Mother of Can-
adian Methodism; and that opens up a more
pleasing tale of the days of old. "All the
preachers that passed this way in the early days
of Methodism," said Mr. Heck, "stopped at our
place. Rev. Dr. Bangs was one of the first of
these. He was stationed at Montreal in 1806, but

62 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

frequently travelled as far as Toronto, going all
the way on horseback. Dr. Green was Chair-
man of a district that took in Bytown, Gatineau,
and Rideau. He often spent four or five weeks
in covering his mission. There were some stir-
ring revivals in those days. Forty were con-
verted at one meeting held in Augusta. Rev.
Erastus Hurlbut and I were converted together
at the revival held there in 1835. During every
summer camp-meetings were held north and
west of Prescott. The music was all vocal, the
Whitney family being among the most noted
singers of the time. Henry Hodge and Thomas
Coates were among the other singing leaders.
All the old-time hymns were used, 'On, FOR A
THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING' being a prime
favourite."

"The Little Blue Church" is a standing mem-
orial of these early days of Methodism. In
the cemetery alongside rests the body of Barbara
Heck in company not only with other early lead-
ers in Methodism, but with those of other de-
nominations as well. "The Johnston cemetery
was, I believe, the first in the neighbourhood,"
said Mr. Heck, "but the Little Blue Church
cemetery was laid out shortly afterwards. Six
people, amongst them my father, undertook the
clearing of the ground."

The cemetery is beautifully situated by the
roadside with a gentle slope to the south where
the majestic St. Lawrence, emblematic of eter-
nity's flow, sings a nightly lullaby over those
whose labours are ended.

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 63

PIONEERS OF GANANOQUE AND ViciNiTT1

Immediately after the American Revolution
some ten thousand United Empire Loyalists
settled along the north shore of the St. Law-
rence. The region was without roads, the only
means of communication with their nearest
point of supply being by water. The British
Government furnished these first settlers with
farming implements, grain and potatoes for
seed, and some clothing, sufficient to tide them
over the first three years of their sojourn in the
wilderness. On the heels of this first ten thou-
sand came other refugees, but for these no such
provision was made, and for them, from the
beginning, bush-life was most trying.

The chief necessity of the pioneers was a shel-
ter for their families. The rudest of log cabins
were the first abodes, and these were built by
the joint labour of the settlers. Sometimes the
cabin would be built around a stump, which
could be used as a hand-mill, or, by placing some
basswood slabs on top, would serve as a table
For these homes glass was not always obtainable
and in many cases light was admitted through
oiled paper stretched over holes in the walls.
The household utensils were of wood — wooden
plates, wooden platters, wooden forks, and

xThe material for this section was obtained through the
generosity of Miss Edith M. McCammon, of Gananoque,
who loaned the editor the manuscript of a book she has in
course of preparation, "The Story of Gananoque." Miss
McCammon is a descendant of Charlotte Macdonald, a
sister of the Charles Macdonald, who married Mary, Colonel
Stone's only surviving child.

64 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

wooden spoons. In some households forks and
knives were unknown and home-made spoons
were used instead.

Wild fruit abounded, and this was gathered
and either preserved by using maple sugar or
dried for future use. Walnuts, hickory-nuts,
butter-nuts, chestnuts, and beechnuts were
stored up for winter. Honey was obtained from

-~^=~:' * - — >l — • * ^==*- • •tf.l*\&.

CIDER PRESS

wild bees and maple sugar was made in large
quantities every spring. Game was plentiful
and each settler had a store of venison and
squirrel salted down in barrels made of the hol-
low trunks of trees. Tea was scarce, a luxury
to be used only on state occasions. These first

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 65

settlers used, as substitutes, sage, sassafras,
thyme, spicewood, hemlock, and a wild herb
called the tea-plant. "Coffee" was made from
peas, barley, acorns, and roots of the dandelion.
Physicians were almost unknown, and these
pioneers collected and dried medicinal herbs
and stored them for time of need.

But they were far from being in a land of
plenty. Three years after the arrival of the
first group of settlers, the crops, owing to frost,
were almost a total failure. The British Govern-
ment was no longer doling out aid and famine
stalked through the land. This period of scar-
city reached its height in 1788. In that year
money was sent to Montreal and Quebec for
flour; but the answer came back : " We have none
to spare." In some places along the lower St.
Lawrence " corn-meal was meted out by the
spoonful, wheat flour was unknown, and millet
seed was ground as a substitute. Here and there
in sheltered spots the wheat crop escaped the
frost and ripened early. The starving inhab-
itants flocked to these fields, even before the
wheat ripened, plucked the milk-heads, and
boiled them into a kind of gruel. Half-starved
children haunted the banks of the river, begging
sea-biscuits from the passing boatmen ....
Families existed for months on oat porridge:
beef bones were boiled again and again; boiled
bran was a luxury; ground-nuts and even the
young buds of trees were eagerly devoured.
Fortunately rabbits and pigeons were plentiful,
and these saved many settlers from actual
starvation."

Col. Burritt, the first settler north of the

66 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Rideau, was one of the first-comers. Shortly
after he made his home at Burritt's Rapids, he
and his wife were attacked with fever and ague.
Having no neighbours, they were forced to rely
on themselves. So severe was their illness, that
they were at length confined to bed and helpless.
For three days and three nights they were with-
out fire or food, and had made up their minds
that they must die At this juncture a band
of Indians appeared on the scene The squaws
tenderly nursed " their white brother and
sister, supplied them with food, and admin-
istered simple but effective remedies. Mean-
while the braves cut the corn in a small field
the colonel had succeeded in clearing, and stored
it in a log shack. The colonel and his wife
made a speedy recovery, and ever after kept
open house for the red men. It was a common
thing to wake in the morning and discover a
score of aborigines reclining in the hall and
other parts of the house. When proceeding up
the river in the spring they frequently left many
articles with the colonel for safe-keeping, not
forgetting, on their return, in the fall, to pre-
sent him with a rich present of furs."

The Indians in this part of Canada were Mis-
sissaguas. They seem to have acted with equal
generosity towards the settlers generally, and on
October 19th, 1787, they received a special grant
of two thousand pounds in goods as a reward for
the aid they had given the United Empire Loyal-
ists. From the Indians the settlers learned the
art of making maple sugar, of spearing fish by
torchlight, and of making clothes from deer-
skins. From the Indians, too, they got moc-

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 67

casins, splint or Indian brooms, and baskets- of
all kinds.

One of the most annoying things the pioneers
had to contend against was the prevalence of
bears, wolves, and foxes. It was almost impos-
sible to keep sheep, pigs, or fowl from these
rapacious nocturnal prowlers. How common
were wild beasts can
be gathered from the
fact that Joseph
Slack, an early settler
near Parmersville
(Athens) killed on his
farm 192 deer, 34
bears, and 46 wolves.
As a bounty of four
dollars was paid for
wolves' heads and two
for those of bear, a
skilful hunter could
profit by the presence
of these pests. But
sometimes they men-
aced the lives of the
settlers. On one occa-
sion a girl of sixteen

Was SPnt on horseback A DAUNTLESS RIDER

With a bag Of COrn to '.' At tui'cs ^c wolves were so close

she could see their eyes gleaming
have it ground at the through the darkness."

mill in Yonge. It was

midnight before the corn was ground, but this
dauntless lass began her retimi journey along
the blazed path to her home. As slio cantered
along under the spreading trees she was startled
by distant yelps and barks, which grew ever

68 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

nearer and nearer. She urged her horse to its
utmost speed, but at times so close were the
wolves that on looking back she could see their
baleful eyes gleaming through the pitchy dark-
ness. Nothing daunted she kept on her way,
her steed urged to its utmost speed by the men-
acing death at its heels At last, almost
exhausted, she reached the door of her home,
her bag of precious food intact.

These early settlers were not without their
simple enjoyments. One of the first things they
did was to set out orchards. "When the trees
began to bear, the best apples were kept for
winter use, and the rest made into cider. The
apple-bees were much enjoyed by young and old.
The boys, with their home-made apple machines,
peeled the apples, then tossed them to the girls,
who, with their knives, would quarter and core
them, while older women would string them
with needle and thread and tie them so they
could be hung up to dry. Then followed a supper
and after that a dance .... A wandering fiddler,
usually an old soldier, would be called in. If
there was no fiddler the boys whistled, or the
girls sang dance music through combs covered
with paper."

Gananoque, or Cadanoryhqua, as the name
seems to have been spelled at the time of the
coming of the U. E. Loyalists, although not
founded until nearly a decade after the first set-
tlers took up homes along the St. Lawrence,
became the commercial centre of the region
between Brockville and Kingston. This was due
to the business foresight and energy of its
founder, Captain Joel Stone. Captain Stone had

WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 69

paid a heavy price for his loyalty to the Crown.
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War his
fine estate was plundered and he was forced to
save his life by flight to New York, where until
the close of the war he was active in the British
interests, fighting both by land and sea.

In 1776, he was ordered to take up arms
against the British Government, but he refused.

At the close of the war, he visited England,
where business kept him until 1786. In that
year he sailed for Canada, having been enrol-
led as a military pensioner with the rank of
captain and granted forty pounds a year. In
1787, he started out in search of a location, and
in a birch canoe with an Indian guide journeyed
westward until the Gananoque river was
reached. The spot attracted him. He decided to
apply for a grant of the land on both sides of the
river and had the land surveyed. But, when he
sent in his application, he found he had a rival
in no less a person than Sir John Johnson, who
was industriously acquiring grants for specula-
tive purposes. However, the difficulty was over-
come by assigning the land on the eastern side
of the river to Johnson and that on the west—
700 acres in all — to Stone.

In the summer of 1791, Captain Stone took
possession of his grant, landing at a point just
west of the present railway station. The only
white person in the vicinity was a Frenchman
named Care, who, with a few Indians, was liv-
ing on Tidd's Island (Tremont Park). Stone
got in touch with Care who came to the main-
land and built a shanty on the point at the end
of what is known as Water Street. Here he

70 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

kept a house of public entertainment for all who
passed on the river, the only highway of travel
at this time.

Stone went energetically to work in his new
home and before long had a well-built house, a
grist-mill and saw-mill in operation, and a gen-
eral store. He had attracted settlers and
brought in workmen, and a thriving community
was soon in being. It is worthy of note that, as
early as 1793, he built a substantial schooner of
forty tons burden, the Leeds Trader, which for
many years was in use on the river and on Lake
Ontario.

Under the able leadership of Joel Stone,
now known as "Colonel," Gananoque grew
rapidly. When war broke out in 1812, it wa;-
in a flourishing condition and attracted the
attention of the American force at Ogdensburg.
Colonel Stone took charge of the military
defences of his district, and when the Americans,
under Major Forsyth, landed on the Canadian
shore they encountered vigorous opposition.
Forsyth 's great desire was to capture Stone, and
for this purpose attacked his house. But the
colonel had made his escape, and his wife, as
valiant as himself, defended their home. She
was shot in the thigh, but held on till help came.
At the time there was a considerable sum of
money in gold in her possession. This she threw
into a barrel of soft soap, — an effective safety-
deposit vault, — and it was overlooked by the
invaders when at length they succeeded in
gaining entrance.

In his later years Colonel Stone was greatly
aided in his work by the Macdonald brothers,

WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 71

Charles and John, the former of whom married
Stone's only daughter, Mary. But to the end
of his long life he was the moving spirit in the
community he had founded, with a keen eye to
its material and moral welfare. As a Justice
of the Peace he at times played the part of a
little autocrat. " Play-actors" were a forbidden
thing in his little
kingdom. He classed
them with " vagrants
and vagabonds." In
March, 1816, three
" actors" appeared in
Gananoque and ad-
vertised a perform-
ance to take place at
the Brownson House,
then recently built.
The irate colonel
waited on them and
ordered them to "pass
on from this House
quietly and not to per-
form the riotous feats
of tumbling, etc."

Eleven years later,
in September, 1827,
another band of
" play-actors" had the
temerity to visit Gan-
anoque. But the lead-
er of the company, James R. Millor, did not
move on promptly when ordered and the colonel
issued this intensely interesting warrant, indic-
ative of the times and the man:

PLAY ACTORS

"The irate colonel waited on them
and ordered them not to perform
the riotous feats of tumbling, etc. ' '

"Whereas James E. Millor, Master and Direc-
tor of several vain persons, calling- themselves
Playactors, Tumblers, etc., did refuse to obey
the Orders officially Delivered to him by Joel
Stone, Esq., one of His Majesty's Justices
assigned to keep the Peace, etc., in the said Dis-
trict, Requiring him, the said James R. Millor
to desist from Playacting, Tumbling, etc., in the
village of Gananoque as so doing would be con-
sidered a Great Insult offered to the Legal
Authority, and in that way of obtaining money
from the vain and thoughtless part of the
Human family, is against the Peace of His
Majesty's Liege subjects in General."

If Millor did not obey he was to be confined
in Brockville gaol for "the space of Ten
Hours." Millor may have weakened, as there
is no record of his having been conveyed to the
gaol at Brockville.

But Colonel Stone was a benevolent despot,
and the prosperity of the village he founded and
the permanent strength it has as a manufactur-
ing community are due mainly to the start he
gave it.

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

Quite a settlement had been formed along the
Penetang' Eoad north of Barrie ten years before
settlement began even at the southern end of
Innisfil, the township forming the west shore of
the lower end of Lake Simcoe. There were two
reasons for this. The first was due to compar-
ative ease of communication; the second, to mar-
ket facilities. The old military highway be-
tween Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay followed
the line of Yonge Street to Holland Landing,
thence up Lake Simcoe to Kempenfeldt Bay and
then again overland to Penetanguishene. Hence
it was a comparatively easy matter to reach the
country about Crown Hill, Dalston, and Craig-
hurst several years before the opening of the
lower section of the Penetang' Road between
Holland Landing and Barrie provided for the
settlement of Innisfil.

The principal reason for the earlier settlement
in the more northerly section was based on mar-
ket considerations. The naval and military post,
first established at Nottawasaga, was transferred
from that point to Penetanguishene in 1818 and
somewhat later the post at Drummond Island
was added. The presence of a military and naval
station thus made this northern port a centre
of commercial activity. It was a centre of In-

74 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

dian trade as well, "and there was," as a grand-
son of one of the Crown Hill pioneers expressed
it, "a general belief that Penetang' was destined
to be the metropolis of Upper Canada."

The Penetang' dream of the pioneers has not
come true, but Crown Hill, which owes its
origin to the existence of the old naval station
on Georgian Bay, has to its credit some-
thing that cannot be claimed for any other rural
section of Ontario. It gave to the province the
first head of the provincial Department of Agri-
culture and in the son of that head the first far-
mer premier of the province. The Drurys,
Partridges, and Hicklings were among the first
to come in along the upper end of the Penetang '
Road, settling in 1819 near where Crown Hill
now is; the Lucks, another large connection,
coming in a year later. The Drurys came from
England; the Lucks and Partridges, from
Albany, N.Y.

"When Grandfather Partridge moved in, he
brought his wife and two children with him as
far as Holland Landing," one of the third gen-
eration told me. "Prom Holland Landing he
walked alone all the way to Penetang, ' his route
around the west side of Lake Simcoe to Kem-
penfeldt Bay being over a blazed trail. After
satisfying himself as to the future of Penetang'
he started to walk back, digging into the soil
at intervals by the way in order to leam its
quality. He walked twenty-five miles before
finding what suited him, and finally located near
Crown Hill, taking up four hundred acres in all,
half on the Oro and half on the Vespra side.
Having built a log cabin he went back to Hoi-

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 75

land Landing for his wife and children and be-
gan family life in the new home in the bush in
October. Afterwards, when the road was fully
opened out, he found that his cabin was almost
in the middle of the King's highway. Hard-
ships? You can judge of general conditions at
that time when I relate one fact told me
by my grandfather. He packed his first grist
on his back from Crown Hill to the east end of
what is now Barrie and then paddled it in a dug-
out the rest of the way, twenty miles, to the old
Red Mill at Holland Landing."

One hundred years ago Penetang' Road was
an Indian highway, as well as a military road,
the Indians traversing it on their way to Toronto
for the annual distribution of presents by
the Government. On one occasion, as narrated
by Hunter in his " History of Simcoe County,"
a number of drunken red men called at the home
of James White, while his wife was alone in
the house, and were promptly chased out again
by Mrs. White, who had armed herself with a
pair of tongs.

Adventures with bears there were, too, one of
these being narrated by Hunter. Gideon Rich-
ardson, to protect his pigs against the black
marauders, built a pen opposite the door
of his cabin and kept a log fire burning at night
beyond the pen. One night, after a rain, the fire
could not be lighted and bruin took advantage
of the situation to raid the pen. In the course of
the attack one pig was hurled through the door
of the cabin into the midst of the sleeping
inmates. There was no more sleep for the fam-
ily that night.

One of the first cares of the settlement about
Crown Hill was to make provision for the edu-
cation of the children, and some time before 1837
a voluntary school was established, with William
Crae as the first teacher. Crown Hill pioneers
were also among the first to take advantage of
the Education Acts of 1841-43, under which an
annual provincial appropriation of twenty thou-
sand pounds was made to assist in the work of
primary education. In fact, a school was estab-
lished on the Vespra side as early as 1842 with
Edward Luck as the first teacher, a position he
filled for twenty-two years. The selection of
Mr. Luck was peculiarly fitting in at least one
respect as, from first to last, no fewer than
fifteen of his own children passed under the rod
in that same school.

"The building was, of course, of log," said a
grandson of one of the pioneers, "and the ben-
ches were of plank with home-made legs sup-
porting them. In the beginning the building was
used for a church as well as a school, and there
was a pulpit in one corner for the church ser-
vices. Pastor Ardagh and Canon Morgan were
the first to officiate. Marriage services were per-
formed there, and on such occasions the benches
were moved back and boys and girls lined up in
front of the pulpit as witnesses."

The old minute book of the section, dating
back to 1844, is still in existence. This records
that Thomas Ambler, George Caldwell, and Jon-
athan Sissons, the latter grandfather of Pro-
fessor Sissons of Victoria College, were the trus-
tees in 1845. The record further shows that the
salary paid Mr. Luck in that year was twenty-

ON THE PENBTANG TRAIL

THE LOO SCHOOL HOUSE

' ' The building was used for a church as well as a school and there
cvas a pulpit iu one corner for church services."

78 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

five pounds currency "over and above Govern-
ment allowance and taxes." In order to make
up the amount required to keep the school going,
sixteen of the settlers agreed to pay one pound
for each child sent to school by them, the largest
single contributor being William Larkin, who
paid four pounds. Among the other contribu-
tors were Jonathan Sissons, Thomas Mairs (one
of the first importers of "Durham" cattle),
Charles Partridge, Charles Hickling, Thomas
Drury, and Richard Drury, the latter being the
grandfather of Premier E. C. Drury.

The amounts contributed by these enlightened
pioneers for the education of their children may
seem small to those of the present gener-
ation, but they were in reality relatively larger
than similar contributions to-day. Incomes were
small. By that time local production had
exceeded the requirements of the local market
at Penetang' and an outlet had to be found at
Toronto, seventy miles away over rough roads.
The prices obtained for farm produce in general
at the provincial capital may be gauged by the
fact that oats teamed there, reaped with a cradle
and threshed with a flail, sold for twenty-five
cents per bushel.

Among the first purchases in the way of sup-
plies for the new school, as an ancient record
further informs us, were "two grammars, cost-
ing four shillings, two and one-half pence" and
"three dictionaries costing five shillings, seven
and one-half pence." In 1852, eleven families
raised sixteen pounds, fifteen shillings and nine-
pence for the school, the largest contributor in
that year being Richard Drury, who gave two

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 79

pounds, nineteen shillings and three-pence. At
the annual school meeting held on January
31st, 1853, with Jonathan Sissons in the chair,
it was decided, on motion of G. Hickling and E.
Luck, that there " shall be a free school." This
resolution does not seem to have gone into effect
at once as nine of those present voluntarily
bound themselves to "raise any amount needed
in excess of the legislative grant and mun-
icipal levy. Among the nine guarantors were
J. Sissons, Charles Hickling, Charles Part-
ridge, Thomas Drury, and Richard Drury. In
1855, a further forward step was taken when the
trustees were empowered to buy maps of the
world and of America as well as books to be dis-
tributed as prizes at the next examination of
pupils.

I remember once hearing one of the faculty
of Cornell University say that he could have
made a much better man of a certain student had
he been given the selection of that individual's
grandparents. The present Premier of Ontario
was fortunate in the selection of his ancestors.
In the arduous work of the pioneer days his
grandfather and great-grandfather had their
full share. In the midst of blackened stumps,
and with the primeval forest still unconquered,
as the old school record quoted from shows, they
bore the heavy end of the burden in providing
for the education of the children of the pioneer
settlement. In establishing municipal govern-
ment the Drury family also took part; Thomas
Drury having been a member of one of the early
councils of Oro, while Richard Drury served as
Reeve on different occasions, and Charles Drury,

80 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

father of the Premier, beginning as reeve of
Oro ended his political career as Minister of
Agriculture for the province. It is not by one of
fortune's freaks that E. C. Drury to-day holds
the position of first citizen of the wealthiest and
most populous province of Canada.

VILLAGES THAT ARE NO MORE

Few men had a wider or more varied know-
ledge of early days in Simcoe County than Wil-
liam Hewson, who told me his story in Barrie
in the summer of 1900. Mr. Hewson had seen
Canadian voyageurs on their way to Montreal
with pelts, when Lake Simcoe was a link in one
of the chief highways between the Upper Lakes
and the Gulf; he had seen the annual movement
of Indians back and forth between Toronto and
Georgian Bay; his father's home was one of the
halting points for British soldiers on their way
to and from Penetang', and he was eye-witness
of the beginning of the white migration to the
country surrounding the lake which bears the
name of Upper Canada's first governor.

Mr. Hewson was located at a particularly
favourable place for viewing these movements,
having settled with his father on Big Bay Point
in 1820. From that date until after the last
century ended he lived almost continuously in
Simcoe County.

"When I was a lad," said Mr. Hewson, "one
of the great receiving depots in the days of the
fur trade Avas maintained by Alfred Thompson,
of Penetang'. Mr. Thompson's winter receipts
of pelts had an aggregate value of from thirty

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 81

thousand to forty thousand dollars. When ready
to sell he advertised in England and Germany,
and representatives of European firms came out
to submit tenders, the highest being accepted.
Our home at 'The Point' was on the highway
connecting Toronto and Georgian Bay. Past
our door Canadian voyageurs, employed by a
Montreal firm, paddled their canoes loaded to the
limit with rich furs taken in the hunting
grounds of the great north country. It was a
day's journey by canoe from Lake Couchiching
to 'The Point,' and when the Indians were on
their return journey from Toronto after receiv-
ing their annuity money, I have seen seven
hundred camped on our farm at one time.
Soldiers on their way to and from the fort
at Penetang' also made our home a resting
place. Later on, when the tide of white immigra-
tion began to flow into the country about Lake
Simcoe a good deal of that tide swept around our
farm. At that time two or three bateaux, carry-
ing settlers and their effects, made regular trips
between Holland Landing and Barrie, and we
could see these as they rounded 'The Point'.

"The most picturesque scenes and exciting
times were furnished by the Indians. In sum-
mer the clothing of the men was limited to
breech cloths and that of the women to petti-
coats, the body being left bare from the waist
up. On the whole journey from Toronto north-
ward rascally traders plied the Indians with
whiskey, obtaining in exchange the guns, blan-
kets, and tomahawks which the Indians had re-
ceived from the Government. By the time Big
Bay Point was reached the Indians, soaked with

82 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

whiskey, were ready to quarrel on slight prov-
ocation. When a general scrimmage began,
the squaws grabbed the papooses and ran for:
the bush. Strange to say, all this fighting was
done with fists ; I never once saw guns or knives
used. The Indians were usually chaste in their
domestic relations, but one old chief, John
Essence, had three wives. When converted to
Methodism he was told he would have to put
away two of these, and the old polygamist
sought a way out. On being told that he could
retain all three wives if he became a Catholic, he
promptly abjured Methodism for what seemed
to him a more liberal faith."

INDIAN BASKET

This talk led up to tales of early marriages
among the whites. Mr. Hewson's father was a
magistrate and as such was authorized to per-
form the marriage ceremony. His field covered
the whole country from Holland Landing to
Penetang'. "One of the first marriage cere-
monies performed by my father was when he
declared his neighbour David Soules legally
wedded. Soules had gone to Pickering for his

bride, a Miss Yeomans, and the trip across Lake
Simcoe was made in a boat rowed by the pros-
pective groom.

"The law required the posting of notices of
intention to marry in three prominent places for
three weeks before marriage. A widower, a
Quaker about to remarry, put up one of his
notices in the cleft of a tree, hoping thereby to
comply with the law while at the same time
avoiding publicity. It happened, however, that
a search party, while hunting for a man who had
been lost in the bush, came across this notice
and soon made it public enough to comply with
the most rigid of legal requirements. One day,
when father was away from home, a negro came
to our place to be married. When this man
found father was away he wanted my mother to
act, on the ground that the Bible pronounced
man and wife one. He contended, therefore,
that what one could do the other could surely do
as well. However, the colored man was told he
would not only have to wait until father
returned but until notice could be given also.
Three weeks later, after legal notice had been
given, when father went to perform the cere-
mony, he found the couple already living
together as man and wife. One couple, far from
either minister or magistrate, did not have the
ceremony performed in their case until one of
their sons was grown up.

"The first Methodist minister in Innisfil town-
ship was Hardy by name, and he was hardy by
nature. His field was from Penetang' to 'The
Landing'; he covered that distance twice a week
on foot and held nine services in the seven days.

84 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

''There were few better stands of pine in On-
tario than that of Innisfil when the first settlers
came in. Near the site of the Twelfth Line
Church a man named Pratt had a partic-
ularly good lot of pine trees and he offered these,
as they stood, at one cent per log to Robert
Thompson, who then had a mill at Painswick.
But pine was worth so little at the time that the
offer was refused. When the old Northern Rail-
way was built, pine did begin to have a value,
and quite an active lumbering industry sprang

THE OLD SAWMILL

up in the township. Sage and Grant, who intro-
duced bob-sleighs into Innisfil, had a mill at
Belle Ewart that at one time employed seventy
men. Mills were also established at 'The Point',
Tollendale, Craigvale, the Seventh Line, Gilford
and Lakeland. At Lakeland, in addition to the
mill, there was a dock, hotel, store, and a really
attractive group of homes with locusts orna-
menting the front yards,"

But all these mills have disappeared long
since, and Lakeland and Belle Ewart would be
mere sand beaches to-day had it not been for
the development of the Lake Simcoe ice trade in
winter and tourist traffic in summer.

At the time that Mr. Hewson related to me
his stories of the days when Lake Simcoe
was an important link in a great highway
between north and south I obtained from Dr. 11
Paterson, then of Barrie, some further particu-
lars regarding the beginning of the Toronto-
Penetang' route. According to Dr. Paterson the
journey between these two places was at times
made by an entirely overland route as early as
1814.

"At that time," Dr. Paterson said, "my
father had a contract for transporting supplies
from Toronto for the garrison of two hundred
men at Penetang'. The entire journey was
made by an overland route, passing to the west-
ward of the bay at Barrie. Over part of that
route, however, axes had to be carried to cut
trees out of the way, and the trip occupied two
weeks. Holland River was crossed on a
floating bridge, and frequently, on returning to
the river, it would be found that the
bridge had been carried away, and it was
then necessary to build a new one. The only
house between Penetang' and 'The Landing' at
that time was a hewed log affair at Crown Hill. '

By Andrew Wallace, one of the pioneers of
Innisfil, T was given some further particulars
about the Lakeland milling enterprise. "A man
named Vance invested thirty thousand dollars
in that venture," Mr. Wallace said. "The mill

86 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

did not run very long and some years later, when
the property had fallen into decay, \7ance vis-
ited the scene of desolation. As lie was standing
on the wreck of the wharf looking into the water
below some one asked him what was interesting
him. "I am trying to discover where my thirty
thousand dollars went," was the reply.

RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE

The family history of Mr. Henry Smith of
Barrie, another descendant of the Simcoe pion-
eers, is remarkable for its variety of colour. The
name was originally Schmidt, and the first of
the name in America was Heinrich Schmidt, an
officer in the Hessian troops sent over by
George III at the time of the American Revo-
lutionary War. This Heinrich was the grand-
father of Henry Smith, whose story follows :

"The troop-ship, on which my grandfather
sailed to America, was eighteen weeks in cross-
ing from Germany," said Mr. Smith. "So long
was the voyage, that the officer in command of
the troops asked the admiral of the fleet if he
was quite sure that he had not passed America
in the night. When my maternal grandmother,
who was also with the troops, caught sight of a
field of corn after landing, she exclaimed:
'America must, indeed, be a rich country when
there are so many ribbons here.' She mistook
the leaves of the ripening corn, glistening in the
evening sun, for ribbons hung out to dry.

"After the Revolution my grandfather re-
ceived a grant of land in the township of Marys-
burg, Prince Edward County, and that is how

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

Smith's Bay obtained its na^ne. A man called
Snider, who had a rather notable nose, settled
on a prominent point in the same township and
hence the name, locally applied, of Snider 's
Nose."

Mr. Smith's own life was about as varied and
full of adventure as that of his grandfather.
As a lad of fourteen he assisted in rafting
timber down the St. Lawrence. "More than
once, in going through the big chute at the

RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE

"More than once in going through the big chute at the Cedars, raft
and raftsmen were submerged."

Cedars, raft and raftsmen were submerged in
the waves, and it was then a case of sit tight
or stay under," said Mr. Smith. "Some of the
timber forming the rafts came from Prince Ed-
ward County, but more of it came down the
Trent. Oak and pine logs were rafted together,
the latter helping to keep the former afloat. A
good deal of the timber was for spars. You

88 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

can judge the length of some of this spar
timber, when I tell you that I liave seen five, six,
and even seven saw-logs cut from one tree. The
record spar, which was one hundred and twenty
feet long, came from Big Bay Point on Lake
Simcoe. Eight or ten teams were used in haul-
ing such timbers from the bush to the water's
edge. When the rafts arrived at Montreal they
were broken up and loaded into sailing vessels
for shipment to England. Those timber vessels
had large port-holes in their bows, and the tim-
ber was hauled to these holes by horses
operating a windlass and then shot into the hold.
When the timber fleet was in Montreal harbour
the masts appeared like a great forest from
which the limbs had been stripped. As I went
down the river on rafts I often met immigrants
coming up in bateaux or Durham boats. These
vessels were much alike save that the bateaux
were open while the Durhams were partially
decked over. Men, women, and children were
huddled together in these craft by day and
camped on shore at night.

"All the lakes and rivers were then full of
fish. I helped haul in a net near Willard's
Beach in Prince Edward County that contained
fourteen thousand fish, and I have seen salmon
near there that were eight inches through the
body. In one case a salmon actually broke the
handle of the spear and got away, but was
afterwards caught with the fragment still in
its body."

In 1847, Mr. Smith moved to Vespra, north of
Barrie. The journey from Toronto to Holland
Landing wras by stage. "Near the end of the

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

journey," said Mrs. Smith, "the driver, who was
drunk, lost control of the horses on the down
grade of one of the hills. The body of the
stage pitched from side to side, forward and
back, the passengers meantime holding on to
anything within reach. It is a wonder our necks
were not broken.

"From the * Landing'
to Barrie passage was
taken by the steamer
Beaver the remains of
which are now buried
beneath the foundation
of the local Grand
Trunk Station. From
Barrie we followed the
old Sunnidale or Nine
Mile Portage Road to
Willow Creek."

I am indebted to Mr.
A. F. Hunter for the his-
tory of this old highway,
which dates back to
1814, and was built in
the first place as a mil-
itary highway. Early
in the War of 1812-15 a
British force had cap-
tured the fort on Mack-

inac Island. Later on the Americans prepared
for its recapture. In order to reinforce the Brit-
ish garrison a force was despatched from King-
ston in February, 1814. This force marched
overland via Toronto to Holland Landing and
thence over the ice of Lake Simcoe to Barrie.

A DRUNKEN DRIVER

"The body of the stage
pitched from side to side, for-
ward and back, the passengers
meantime holding on to any-
thing within reach. ' '

90 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

From Barrie the Nine Mile Portage Road was
cut tlirough to Willow Creek. There, trees, cut
from the surrounding forest, were fashioned into
bateaux, and in these improvised craft, when
spring came, the relieving force floated down
Willow Creek to the Nottawasaga River, along
that river to Georgian Bay, and thence to
Mackinac. Block-houses as bases of supply were
built at Holland Landing, Barrie, and Willow
Creek; the Barrie block-house being located
where the music hall now stands. Willow
Creek was quite an important centre of settle-
ment for years afterwards, but to-day not one
stone remains upon another. Only a few holes
mark the site, these holes having been dug in
search of gold which tradition said had been
buried there.

A WAYSIDE INN'S FAMOUS GUESTS

There is possibly no other Ontario farm with
the exception of farms along the lake frontier,
which is so prominently connected with local
history as is the old Warnica homestead, — lot
thirteen on the twelfth of Innisfil, — opposite the
beautiful avenue of pines on the Penetang'
Road, two miles south of Barrie.

The farm was given to John Stamm for his
services with Button's Cavalry in the War of
1812-15, and settlement duties on the place were
begun by Stamm. Once, when on his way to the
place from Markham township, Stamm narrow-
ly escaped drowning in Lake Simcoe. That was
enough of that location for him, and he sold his
place to the first of the Canadian Warnicas for

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 91

ten dollars. The Warnicas took possession in
1825. Shortly afterwards, because of the grow-
ing traffic between north and south, the house
on the place became an inn; and, although there
were only two rooms and a loft available for
travellers, some distinguished guests were en-
tertained there. It is said that Sir John Frank-
lin spent a night at the inn on his overland trip
to the Arctic regions, and a voyageur sent back
by Sir John sought shelter at the same place on
the return journey. Bishop Strachan, on jour-
neys north and south, made this a stopping
place; and Sir John Colborne, when Gov-
ernor of Upper Canada, was provided with food
and lodging there when on his tour of inspection
of the military post at Penetang'. So well
pleased was Sir John with the accommodation
provided that he offered each of the Warnica
boys a free grant bush lot. How little such lots
were valued at the time is evidenced by the fact
that the boys did not think it worth while to
go to Toronto to secure the deeds of the
property tendered them.

When the Warnicas first settled in Innisfil,
Lake Simcoe was still a connecting link on the
Toronto-Penetang' highway, and Big Bay point
was located right on that highway. David
Soules, one of the first settlers on 'The Point',
told Warnica he was a fool to settle so far to the
west. "You will be away off the main road,"
said Soules, "and the blackbirds will eat all
your crops." To-day, however, it is 'The Point'
that is isolated while the old Warnica farm
fronts on one of the principal provincial high-
ways.

92 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

At the beginning the Warnicas endured many
privations. Clothing was largely made of home-
grown flax, and one of the Warnica boys of that
day had to stay in bed while his one linen shirt
was being washed.

The first grist from the Warnica farm had to
be hauled to the old "Red Mill" at Holland
Landing. Once when a grist was being taken
it was intended to make the round trip in a day,
but the men were storm-stayed at Grassi Point
on the return journey. The night, however, was
spent in comparative comfort, as Indians who
were camping there at the time supplied the
Warnica boys with blankets.

Running all through these old-time sketches
incidents are related in which the first settlers
were indebted to the Indians for kindness such
as that shown the Warnicas. The conduct of
the aborigines stands all the more to their credit
when the manner in which they were being
plundered and brutalized by white traders
is borne in mind.

Slowly but surely times changed for the bet-
ter. The settlement along the Penetang' Road
north of Barrie, producing beyond local needs,
demanded a route all the way to Toronto, and
money was raised, apparently by public sub-
scription, to build around Barrie Bay a link to
connect the old Penetang' Road north of Bar-
rie with the line north from Holland Landing.
Two of the Warnica boys were given the con-
tract of cutting out the bush from Tollendale to
Churchill, a distance of eleven miles, at five dol-
lars per mile. That would seem very small pay
to road-builders of to-day, but five dollars went

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 93

a long way when Innisfil was young. The hard-
est part of the Warnicas' task was at Stroud,
which, although dry enough now, was a dif-'
ficult swamp at that time.

Previous to this the Warnicas had made con-
siderable money in teaming military supplies
intended for the Penetang' garrison over the
Nine Mile Portage Road between Barrie and
Willow Creek. Then, when settlement began to
move into the Sunnidale and Beaver valleys,
they obtained remunerative employment in
teaming the effects of the more northern set-
tlers to their destination.

The first of the Warnicas, besides being a
pioneer in the matter of settlement, was a par-
ticipant in the inauguration of municipal govern-
ment in Innisfil. He, with Charles Wilson and
John Henry, formed the equivalent of the first
local council when Innisfil was municipally or-
ganized in 1841. He was also a member of the
Home District Council, which then met in Tor-
onto. The manner of election for a place in the
latter body is an illustration of the free and
easy way in which elections were carried on in
the early days. Warnica and David Soules were
contestants for the office and the election was
held at the old Myers tavern at Stroud. To decide
the matter it was arranged that one of the con-
testants should lead his supporters south along
the road from the tavern while the followers of
the other should be led north. The one that had
the largest following, and this was Warnica, was
declared elected.

Some of the family history of the Warnicas is
as interesting as it that of the farm with which

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

the family name has been identified for a cen-
tury. The first of the family was a Dane, whose
name was spelled Werneck. As a young man
Werneck possessed considerable means, which
he spent largely in seeing the world. On his
return to Denmark, while telling of some of his
adventures, his word was questioned, where-
upon Werneck promptly struck down the

"F ~N \\W f' * «{ ^ \0 1

fc wftro W

fgJL«ifaJA; All'" ••

i oTicir uTri.T.w nv i nnMnRir.n vir.Ans inn

A RURAL BELLE OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

"Doubting Thomas." For this he was fined
forty kronen by a Danish magistrate. On paying
the fine Werneck asked if a second offence would
cost the same, and was assured it would.
Another forty kronen pile was promptly counted
out with the" first, and then Werneck knocked

ON THE PENETANG TEAIL 95

down the magistrate. At a much later date,
while playing the fiddle for a party in his Innis-
fil farm, this fiery Dane had the misfortune
to fall, and, when one of the party asked if the
fiddle had been broken, the fiddle was hurled at
the head of the questioner for making the first
enquiry about the instrument instead of for the
life that might have been lost in the fall.

Some time after the forty kronen incident
Werneck sailed for New York, and there the
family name was changed to Warnick. On
coming to Canada, at a still later date, the "k"
was changed to "a", and for three generations
Warnica has been one of the best known family
names in the township of Innisfil.

While in New York State Warnica married
a German widow named Myers. Mrs. Myers'
parents, and all of her grandparents with the
exception of one grandmother, had been killed
and scalped during an Indian raid in the
Mohawk Valley at the time of the American
Revolutionary War. The surviving grand-
mother had been scalped and left for dead, but
survived for years afterwards. Mrs. Myers
herself escaped the massacre because, as a babe,
she was asleep and was overlooked.

A combination of Danish and German blood
in the first of the family with subsequent inter-
marriage amongst descendants of the English,
Irish, and Scotch pioneers of Innisfil, the War-
nicas, like the old Hessian soldiers and the de-
scendants of the palatinates of Sunderland,
furnish a striking illustration of the varied
nature of the strains entering into the making
of the Canadian commonwealth.

96 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

A LONG WAY TO THE MILL

When I listened to the story which follows,
near the close of the last century, the country
between Barrie and Penetanguishene had long
played its part in Canadian history. Penetang'
itself, like Toronto, figured in the War of
1812-15, and the settlements between Barrie and
Penetang' began almost as early as settlements
near Toronto. The Drury farm at Crown Hill,
for example, was taken up by the grandfather of
the Honourable E. C. Drury in 1819, and the
Methodist Church at Dalston bears the dates
1827-97. At the same time, not far from the
road leading to Penetang/ pioneer conditions
still existed twenty-five years ago.

What is here related is based mainly on what
I was told by Thomas Craig, of Craighurst, who
was then living on the north half of lot forty-
two on the first concession of Medonte. Of that
farm something could then be said that prob-
ably could not be said of any other farm in
Ontario. The lot was taken up as a grant from
the Crown by Mr. Craig's grandfather in 1821,
and from that time, until 1899, there was never
a mortgage against the property, the only
records standing in connection therewith in the
Registry Office at Barrie being in the form of
transfers from father to son.

" There were," said Mr. Craig, "two reasons
why grandfather located so far north. One was
that the land about Kempenfeldt Bay was all
in the hands of military pensioners and that
about Dalston in the hands of a company; the

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 97

other was that the British garrison at Penetang'
provided a convenient market.

"Penetang' garrison was maintained until
about the middle of the century and was made
up in part of some of Wellington's veterans.
One of these, Charles Collins, was in the 52nd
Regiment at Waterloo. John Hamilton was
another Waterloo man. Private McGinnis
served in the Peninsular War and received his
discharge at Penetang.' He left a number of
descendants in the country west of Craighurst.

"As a boy," continued Mr. Craig, "I saw par-
ties of soldiers passing along the road on their
way to and from Penetang.' They travelled
in small parties so as not to crowd stopping
places between Toronto and Georgian Bay.
Once, when a party was on the way north, the
officer in charge swore that he would march his
men from Newmarket to Penetang' in a day.
He did it, but two of the men died by the way-
side. One of these was literally done to death
by mosquitos and was buried near where Wye-
bridge now stands.

"I have seen Indians, hundreds and hundreds
of them at a time, going along the same road on
their way to and from Toronto. In late fall they
went south to make baskets in the woods, then
standing near Toronto, and to sell them in the
city. In early spring they returned to the
Christian Islands to make sugar, to fish, and
later on to engage in the fall hunt. Although
drunkenness frequently occurred among the
Indians, wo did not fear them as they uover
offered to molost the settlers."

Speaking of early experiences Mr. Craig went

98 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ou: "Grists had to be carried all the way to
Newmarket, but the Government mill at Cold-
water later on relieved us of the necessity of
making that journey. About 1830, Government
and settlers joined in erecting another mill at
Midhurst. For our groceries we were still com-
pelled to go to Newmarket, where the first of the
Cawthras then had a store. The road be-
tween here and Barrie was nothing but a trail;
from Barrie to Holland Landing we travelled on
the ice in winter and by boat in summer, and
from Holland Landing to Newmarket by Yonge
Street. The round trip occupied three or four
days. In the beginning supplies were packed
on the back, but later on two or three joined in
the use of an ox-team and jumper. Event-
ually E. C. Drury's grandfather and my father
joined in building a road around the bay at
Barrie, and then the entire journey could be
made without crossing Lake Simcoe.

"The first post-office north of Newmarket was
at Penetang'. There was a regular mail ser-
vice from Toronto to Newmarket, but mail for
points further north was given for delivery to
the first reliable settler who happened to come
along. This volunteer carrier, the beginning of
rural mail delivery, distributed his letters as he
passed up Yonge Street and the Penetang' Road,
and handed in the regular mail-bag for Pene-
tang' when he reached that point. Sometimes
there were letters still in this bag for settlers
along the way, and these had to be sent back as
chance offered."

The first wagon that passed over this road
was made in 1826 or 1827 by a man named

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 99

White, of Newmarket. It was built largely of
Swedish iron and was still in existence at the
close of the last century.

HARDSHIPS OF THE NOTTAWASAGA PIONEERS

As the country about Creemore, in Nottawa-
saga, was settled at an earlier date than was
Flos, the hardships of the Nottawasaga pioneers
were greater than those sustained by the Flos
pioneers.

One of the early settlers in Nottawasaga was
Joseph Galloway, who located near Creemore
in 1852. Some twenty years before that time,
Mr. Galloway's father, who was then living near
Bradford, teamed flour into the northern town-
ship with oxen. "That flour," said Mr. Joseph
Galloway, "was sold to the settlers at eight or
ten dollars per barrel ; but it was worth the cost
as a week was taken on the round trip, and over
a great part of the way the country was solid
bush. It was dear flour to the settlers all the
same, as some of those who purchased it had
earned the necessary money by working in the
harvest fields at 'the front' at fifty cents per
day. Some were unable to pay the price and, on
one occasion, one man went without bread for
nearly two weeks.

"Even when I moved into the township one-
third of the lots for the last fourteen miles of the
way had not a tree cut on them, and the others
had but small clearings. Doer were more plenti-
ful then than sheep are now. On the Currie farm,
just outside of Creemore, were 'licks' to which
deer came in droves. In a nearby creek, now a

100 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

TAKINO HOME THE GRIST

1 ' Kingston Road was little more than a path through the
bush. 1 can remember when our Arista had to be carried
to Port Hope."

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

101

mere dribble, one could catch a pailful of speck-
led trout in an hour. In one night wolves killed
fourteen sheep.

"We had the choice of four markets — Barrie,
Bradford, Holland Landing, and Newmarket.
To reach Barrie, the nearest of the four, in-
volved a journey covering two whole days and
part of the nights. Our usual practice was to
leave before three in the morning, and if we got
back at midnight of the second day we consid-
ered ourselves lucky. Twenty-five to , thirty

SOAP-MAKING IN THE EARLY DAYS

bushels made a load of wheat. The price was
fifty cents per bushel, and half trade at that. A
yoke of oxen, weighing over a ton each, sold
in Toronto for sixty-five dollars. A change
came with the extension of the old Northern
Railway to Collingwood and with the Crimean
War. In the fall of 1854 I sold wheat for fifty
cents at Bradford; the next year I got one
dollar and a half at Stayner.

102 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"It was plain living in the early days. Our
log house was eighteen feet wide by twenty-four
feet deep, and eleven logs high. There was a
stone fireplace and chimney at one end, and to
reach the upper rooms a ladder was used instead
of stairs. Bread was baked in a pot that would
hold half a pail of dough and the baking was
done by putting the pot in a pail of ashes on the
hearth. We had a frying-pan with a long handle
in which we cooked venison and trout, the pan
being placed on the coals in the fireplace. There
were wild plum trees about a mile away, and
from these we gathered two or three pails in

a season.'

The parents of Archie Currie, formerly
M.P.P. for West Simcoe, were also among the
early settlers in Nottawasaga, coming there
from Mariposa. In moving they crossed Lake
Simcoe on the ice, and proceeded thence by way
of Orillia and Barrie to the sixth of Not-
tawasaga. "The clearing on the place to which
we moved was barely large enough to enable us
to see the blue sky above," Mr. Currie 's
mother told me. "There was no floor in the
house when we arrived, only a few boards to set
the stove on; and, the doors not being in place,
we hung blankets over the openings to keep out
the winter wind. What is now Creemore was
a network of tangled trees."

It was the practice of the first settlers to go
in parties when teaming their produce to Barrie
with ox-teams. There were no taverns by the
roadside, and at dinner or supper time a halt
was made at a clearing. While the oxen ate
their hay, the men smoked their pipes and gos-

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 103

siped, an occasional drink of whiskey causing
the gossip to flow more freely. Sometimes a
party would be storm-bound in Barrie, and in
that case a good deal of the scanty receipts from
the produce sold would be used up in paying
for lodging. In one instance a man was forced
to send home for money to pay his way back.
In another case a settler, who had packed his
load on his shoulders, lost Ins way in the dark-
ness on the road home. After vainly groping
about for some time he lay down with a pine
knot for a pillow and when he woke in the morn-
ing he found himself within a few rods of his
own door.

Nottawasaga was not, like Flos, a pro-
hibition township. In the former whiskey was
as free as water. It was a common practice at
stores to keep a barrel on tap at which custom-
ers were free to help themselves at will. One
store at Stayner continued this practice as late
as the 'sixties and in connection with that par-
ticular store and barrel a story is told of a hoax
perpetrated by a practical joker of the day.
While the barrel was free to all who came in,
it was assumed that only such as were customers
would take advantage of the hospitality offered.
There was one old chap who seldom bought
anything over the counter although he fre-
quently drank there and a young fellow de-
cided to cure the old toper of the habit. So
when the thirsty one came in one day, and as
usual began edging his way to the open barrel,
his attention was purposely diverted for a mo-
ment and meantime the tin cup attached to the
whiskey barrel was filled with coal oil. The

104 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

oil was taken at a gulp before the taste -was
noticed, but it is probable that the weakness for
free drinks was cured there and then.

Tragedy was closely linked with comedy in
the drinking habits of pioneer days. A young
-man of eighteen, with Indian blood in his veins,
was noted for his strength and courage even in
a community where these qualities were a com-
monplace. He could lift a stone that a team of
horses found it difficult to move, and one of his
feats was to stand on his head at the pinnacle
of a newly raised barn. He could, too, hold his
own with the hardest drinkers in carrying his
load of liquor. But one day he overdid it. He
accepted a wager that he could drink a pailful
at one sitting. He swallowed the lot in three
gulps, staggered to a fence corner and died.

THE RUGBY SETTLEMENT

Hardships quite as great as those borne by
most of the pioneers were endured by the first
settlers between Hawkstone and Rugby, on the
west side of Lake Simcoe.

"When our people came here in the early
thirties," said John Robertson, a son of one of
the Rugby pioneers, "they had to bring their
flour all the way from Hog's Hollow. The flour
was teamed as far as Holland Landing and then
carried by boats, manned by Indians, to Hawk-
stone. From Hawkstone the settlers packed it
on their backs to Rugby, a distance of six miles,
and even to Medonte, six miles further on. The
flour was usually carried in bags, but on one
occasion Grandfather George Robertson car-

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 105

ried home almost a barrel of flour on his
shoulders.

"In 1833, the Government built a grist-mill at
Coldwater. This was intended for the use of
the Indians, but it served settlers about Rugby
as well. Being only fourteen miles distant, it
proved a great convenience. Even at that, how-
ever, two days were spent going and coming
with grist. At times it took longer, as not infre-
quently fifty teams would arrive at the mill in
one day, and then people had to wait their turn.
While waiting, the men cooked 'chokedog', a
mixture of flour and water, for their food. It
was as hard as a brick on the outside and soft
as blubber in the middle."

Real comfort came, though, when, in 1855, a
man named Dallas built a mill between Orillia
and where the Hospital for Feeble-Minded now
stands. The stone foundation for this mill was
laid by the father of Duncan Anderson.1 While
engaged in this foundation work Mr. Anderson
Sr., lived at home, three miles away. Still he
was always at work at the mill at seven,
remained until six, and after returning home he
frequently worked in the logging field until ten
at night. The old Dallas mill disappeared long
ago, but part of the foundation still standing
shows that the stones were well and truly laid.

In the first year of the Rugby settlement, be-
fore there was enough cleared ground on which
to grow potatoes, George Tudhope, formerly
clerk of Oro Township, planted some potatoes

1Duncan was for years a popular Farmers' Institute
lecturer and later served three terms as mayor of Orillia.

106 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

on shares at Holland Landing. He pitted his
share when dug, and next spring moved them to
Hawkstone by boat and from Hawkstone car-
ried them to Rugby on his back. One spring
when potatoes were exceptionally scarce, peo-
ple actually dug up the tubers they had planted
for seed in order to secure food.

THE EARLY DAYS OP INNISFIL

"I have been here in Innisfil longer than any
man now living in the township. My memory

SKIDDING LOGS

goes back to the time long before the railway,
when the forests, which then covered the land,
were filled with game and when Indians were
as numerous around Lake Simcoe as they
still are about the north shore of Georgian
Bay." It was J. L. Warnica, then in his
eightieth year, but who would have passed for
less than seventy, who made this statement. The
story that followed fully warranted the expecta-

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 107

tioiis aroused by the introduction. When Mr.
Warnica was a young man, all the merchandise
received in Barrie was teamed there from
Toronto, and much of the teaming was done by
Mr. Warnica himself. "When passing over
'The Ridges' I have, from an elevation, seen
teams as far north and south as the eye could
reach," said Mr. Warnica. "It was like one
huge funeral procession, and it was made up of
wagons from as far away as Medford and
Penetang' on the north, as well as wagons that
had drifted in from intervening side roads.

"The Innisfil teamsters had two favourite
stopping places in Toronto. One was the Full-
james House, at the corner of Queen and Yonge
streets, and the other was the old Post tavern
nearly opposite the St. Lawrence market. The
Fulijames place stood well back from the cor-
ner and covered practically the site now occu-
pied by the Eaton store. Great sheds for the
accommodation of teamsters filled the yards.
The corner at that time marked the northern
limits of the city. The buildings in Toronto were
scattered like those of a village. The Queen
Street asylum was two miles out of town. The
father of my first wife bought ten acres and an
old tavern opposite the main gate of the asylum
for one thousand dollars.

"Yes, there were plenty of taverns in those
days," continued Mr. Warnica. "Between the
head of Kempenfeldt Bay at Barrie and Yonge
Street wharf in Toronto, there were sixty-eight
licensed houses — one for each mile of the road
and three to spare, besides eight or ten un-
licensed places. Distilleries were also numer-

108 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ous. There was one at Tollendale, opposite
Barrie, and another on the creek that runs
through Allandale. These were, however, soon
snuffed out and the bulk of the business in this
line passed to the Gooderhams. Most of my
freight, when I was teaming, consisted of
Gooderham whiskey. Six barrels made a load
and, after being hauled all the way to Barrie,
it retailed at twenty-five cents per gallon.

"But then the freight bill was not very high,"
Mr. Warnica went on. "The regular charge for
teaming a load of whiskey to Barrie was eight
dollars. Out of that the teamster had to pay for
the feed of his horses, board for himself, and the
fee at seven toll gates. I remember once, when
another teamster and myself had a miscellaneous
lot of merchandise for a Barrie merchant, we
were charged with the loss of a box of ribbons.
I do not believe we ever received the box, but we
had to pay for it all the same. On that occasion,
when expenses had been deducted, there was
just seventy-five cents to divide between us for
the round trip. After that we preferred to haul
whiskey as there was no chance of loss on that.

"If freights were not high, expenses incurred
by freighters were not extravagant either.
Supper and bed for a man and hay for his
team cost fifty cents at a wayside tavern. It is
true that it was not exactly royal fare. There
were three beds in each room and two people
slept in each bed. There were no stationary
wash-stands, in fact, not so much as a wash-
stand of any kind. A basin stood in the
bar and each man took his turn in going out to
the pump for a clean up.

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

109

"Some of these stopping places were not too
warm. I well remember one night spent at
McLeod's tavern, a little north of Aurora, The
building was of frame and not plastered at that.
There were two thin cotton sheets and one quilt,
and a very thin one it was, on the bed. I had

PIONEER TOOLS

CANDLE STICK

to rub my toes to keep them from freezing in
the night.

"The accommodation north of Barrie was
poorer still. Once, early in March, father and I

110 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

undertook to move a camp of Indians from
Tollendale to Rama. There was at that time a
tavern, known as The Half Way House, about
midway between Barrie and Orillia. We pro-
posed to stop there for dinner, but the Highland
landlord informed us that he had no flour. 'I
have plenty of good whiskey, though,' he said,
evidently wondering what a man wanted to eat
for so long as he could get plenty to drink.
Unable to get dinner we decided to push on to
Orillia. There we ordered dinner and supper
in one and took our Indian charges over to
Rama while the meal was being prepared.
When we returned to the tavern I found, after
unhitching, that I could not get my horses into
the only stable in the place as the door was too
low for the animals to pass in. The landlord
proposed that I should let them stand in the
shed all night, but I was afraid that they would
perish with cold after the hard drive. So when
supper was over I started for home, where I
arrived at five next morning, after having been
nearly twenty-four hours on the road.

"The roads, south as well as north of our
place, were as poor as the tavern accommoda-
tion. The low places on Yonge Street and the
Penetang' Road were covered with corduroy,
and as the logs were of uneven size you can
imagine what it was like driving over them.
A little before my time a party of traders on
their way north to trade with the Indians
reached Grass! Point toward evening. On their
arrival one of the traders was taken ill, but next
day they went on to where the old Sixth Line
Church now stands. The man's condition became

Ill

worse and that night he died. His body was
buried at the foot of a giant maple, which then
stood just inside the present cemetery grounds.
From the tragic nature of the trader's death
there arose a story that the place was haunted,
and a half-breed who then carried the mail
between Penetang' and Toronto quit his job
because he had to pass the place at night.

"I once had a bad fright there myself. I was
on my way from Toronto, accompanied by my
uncle in another wagon, with a load of freight.
We had been held up at Bradford by a thunder-
storm and when we reached the sixth line it was
pitch dark. A fire had been started by some
men engaged during the day in improving the
road and this fire spread to the hollow stub, all
that remained of the big maple marking the
grave of the trader. As I came near the spot
I beheld what seemed to be a light moving slow-
ly up and down. I at once thought of the spook
story and my hair stood on end with fear.
What I really did see was a succession of fitful
flames showing first at one hole in the maple
stub and then at another higher up or lower
down. It was all right when the explanation
came but exceedingly uncomfortable before
learning the cause of the light.

"No, I was not born in Innisfil," said Mr.
Warnica as the conversation drifted off in
another direction. "I was born near Thornhill.
My grandfather (Lyon) on my mother's side
established a grist-mill there before the time of
Thome, after whom the place was named. A
Pennsylvania Dutchman, Kover by name, took
a couple of stones from the creek and dressed

112

them for grinding. Before that we did our
grinding in a coffee-mill we had brought with
us. Before that again people crushed wheat
with the head of an axe in a hole made
in the top of an oak stump. This stump
was on the third of Markham, near Buttonville,
and I remember quite well seeing the hole in it
and hearing the story. To my Grandfather
Lyon was issued one of the first two Crown
deeds granted in Markham."

Turning once more to the early days near
Barrie, Mr. Warnica had something to say
of Indian life and the abundance of game
that then filled the woods. "I have seen,"
he said, "as many as one hundred Indian
tepees in the woods about Tollendale on the
south side of Kempenfeldt Bay. It was an
interesting sight to watch the making of an
Indian home in winter. The head of the family,
carrying bow and arrow, tomahawk and knife,
strode ahead. The mother, carrying one or two
papooses on her back, as well as the household
belongings, followed. When the site selected
for the camp was reached, the Indian chopped
down a few saplings with crotched tops. The
squaw meantime, with a cedar shovel, formed a
circular hole in the snow. The crotched sticks
were set up around this and covered with bark
or evergreens; a fire was started in the middle
of the tent, evergreen boughs were spread on the
ground and covered with fur, and, in half an
hour, the house was ready for occupation. While
the work of preparation was going on the
papooses, strapped to flat boards, were lumg up
on trees bv hooks at the heads of the boards.

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 113

If one cried the mother would stop work for a
moment and soothe the child with a gentle rock-
ing accompanied by a lullaby.

"Game — bear, deer, partridge, and pigeons-
was more than abundant. I have killed
partridges with a club. I once struck down a
pigeon with an ox-goad; another time, with two
shots — one fired into a flock of pigeons as they
were feeding on the ground and the other as they
rose — I secured twenty-nine birds; I have fre-
quently brought down ten or a dozen at a single
shot.

"As a boy, I have heard the wolves howling in
the woods at night, and in the morning the
sweat would pour from me with fear as I went
into these same woods to hunt for the cows. On
one occasion I helped capture two young bears
on the Penetang' road opposite our place, a little
south of Barrie. We cut down the trees in
which the animals had taken refuge and then
killed them with clubs.

"What became of the pigeons? I do not
know, but I have a theory. My theory is that all
this game was placed here for the use of man
when no other form of food was available and
that it disappeared when the need for it no
longer existed.

"I have witnessed almost all the changes that
have taken place in Innisfil," said Mr. Warnica
as he concluded his story. "I was here at the
beginning of the settlement, and I was already
a young man when the railway came. I bought
my first overcoat with money earned in making
pick- and axe-handles, and cart shafts, for use
in the work of construction. I came here as

114 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

an infant, and the longest time I have spent
away from home was when I put in twenty-
eight days at the World's Fair at Chicago. I
was always interested in fairs; I attended
twenty-two out of twenty-four of the old Pro-
vincials in the days when the fair was held
alternately at London, Kingston, and other
places."

Mr. Warniea's first wife was a niece of John
Montgomery of Montgomery's Tavern and his
second, a niece by marriage of Samuel Lount,
one of the martyrs of 'Thirty-Seven. But Mr.
Warnica himself was a mere child in the
troubled times of the 'thirties and all he knew
of the period before the rebellion was a mere
matter of hearsay. He told of one incident,
however, that throws some light on the con-
ditions that helped to fan the flames of revolt.

"My uncle William," he said, "was one of
the first advocates of free schools and he once
broached the subject at a meeting at Barrie.
'What do you need such schools for?' stuttered
one of the Family Compact champions. 'There
will always be enough well educated Old Coun-
trymen to transact all public business, and we
can leave Canadians to clean up the bush.'

The sentiment thus expressed is not wholly
dead yet, although it exists in a somewhat differ-
ent form. There are still those who think they
were made to ride while others were made
to be ridden.

REMINISCENCES or A SUNNIDALE PIONEER

One of the most interesting and instructive
accounts of pioneer life of Upper Canada dur-

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 115

ing the early part of the last century is contained
in Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer, by
Samuel Thompson. Thompson was a man of
some education, having served a seven years'
apprenticeship in London, England, at the print-
ing trade. He was a writer of ability and
no mean poet, and during his later years in
Canada was an editor and publisher. He
remained but a short time in the bush, but the
account of his experiences throw much light on
pioneer conditions.

A settler to reach Canada from the British
Isles had in nearly every case trying exper-
iences. Little thought was given to the com-
fort of the emigrants by the transportation
companies of those days, and the journey across
the Atlantic was not the least of the trials the
early settlers had to endure. Thompson's case
was no exception. He and his two brothers,
Thomas and Isaac, sailed from London in the
spring of 1833 in the Asia of 500 tons, a large
ship for those days. Buffeted by head winds,
the Asia spent a fortnight in the English Chan-
nel, but, a favourable breeze springing up, they
made an excellent run until the banks of New-
foundland was reached, when it seemed that
their voyage was about ended. Here they en-
countered a furious storm, against which the
Asia could make no progrss. To make matters
worse, the vessel sprang a leak, the ballast
shifted, and, lying at an angle of fifteen degrees,
she wallowed in the tumbling waves. Crew and
passengers manned the pumps continuously, but
still the water gained on them. The captain
discovered that the leak was in such a position

that when running before the wind it would be
out of water, and so to save his ship he turned
about and made for the Irish coast and succeeded
in reaching Galway Bay. Here the damage was
repaired, and with the addition of some wild
Irish, Roman Catholics and Orangemen, to her
list of passengers the Asia once more headed
Canadawards. On the passage the vessel was
almost wrecked, when passing through a field
of icebergs, "by the sudden break-down of a
huge mass as big as a cathedral/'

When Quebec was reached, the passengers of
the Asia were transferred to a fine steamer for
Montreal. At Lachine, bateaux were provided
to carry them up the St. Lawrence. While at
Lachine they had a picturesque reminder of the
vastness of the land in which they were about
to make their homes.

" While loading up," says Thompson, "we
were favoured with one of those accidental 'bits'
—as a painter would say — which occur so rarely
in a life-time. The then despot of the North-
West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for
the seat of his government via the Ottawa River.
With him were some half-dozen officers, civil and
military, and the party was escorted by six or
eight Nor '-West canoes — each thirty or forty
feet long, manned by some twenty-four Indians,
in the full glory of war-paint, feathers, and most
dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats,
with their no less stately crews, gliding with
measured stroke, in gallant procession, on their
way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's
Bay territory, with the British flag displayed at
each prow, was a sight never to be forgotten."

117

It is unnecessary to detail the Thompsons'
westward voyage, similar to that of other set-
tlers already described in this book. Sufficient
to say that they reached Little York on the
steamer Cnited Kingdom during the first week
in September, 1833, four months after leaving
London. "Muddy Little York," as it was not
undeservedly called, had then a population of
about 8,500. According to Thompson, "in
addition to King street the principal thorough-
fares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate Streets,
now more euphoniously styled Queen, Rich-
mond, and Adelaide Streets respectively."
Where the Prince George Hotel now stands was
"a wheat-field." "So well," writes Thompson,
"did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that
in crossing Church Street near St. James'
church, boots were drawn off the feet by the
tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on
Market Lane (now Colborne Street), we had
to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along
the roadside. There was rude flagged pavement
here and there, but not a solitary planked foot-
path throughout the town."

The Thompsons purchased a location ticket
for twenty pounds sterling, and set out for the
Lake Simcoe district "in an open wagon without
springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking
utensils of intending settlers." After a day's
journey, they reached Holland Landing and
from there crossed to Barrie in a small steamer.
Barrie, at that time, consisted of "a log bakery,
two log taverns, — one of them also a store, — and
a farm-house, likewise log. Other farm-houses
there were at some little distance hidden by

118 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

DEPARTURE OF SIMPSON

"To see these stately boats, on their way to the vasty
wilderness of the Hudson's Bay territory, with the British
flag displayed at each prow, w^s a sight never to be for-
gotten. ' '

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 119

trees." So desolate was the prospect that some
members of the party turned back, but the
Thompsons pressed on "for the unknown forest,
then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to
Lake Huron." To the Nottawasaga river,
eleven miles, "a road had been chopped and
logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river
nothing but a bush path existed."

They toiled on until nightfall, covering a
distance of eight miles and at a clearing in the
forest came on a bush tavern, * l a log building of
a single apartment." "The floor," writes
Thompson, "was of loose split logs, hewn into
some approach to evenness with an adze; the
walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with
chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent
an occasional glimpse of the objects visible out-
side, and had the advantage, moreover, of ren-
dering a window unnecessary; the hearth was
the bare soil, the ceiling slabs of pine wood, the
chimney a square hole in the roof; the fire was
literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into
four-feet lengths, and heaped up to the height
of as many feet." As the dancing flames lit
up the apartment, they revealed "a log bedstead
in the darkest corner, a small red-framed look-
ing-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail
by a string, . . . stools of various sizes and
heights, on three legs or on four, or mere pieces
of log sawn short off. ' ' The tavern was kept by
a Vermonter, named Dudley Root, and his wife,
"a smart, plump, good-looking little Irish
woman. ' ' The pair evidently knew how to cater
for the occasional guests, as the breakfast pro-
vided for the Thompsons proved, — "fine dry

J20 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

potatoes, roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes,
butter, eggs, milk, 'China tea,' and chocolate—
which last (declined by the Thompsons) was a
brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree bark,
sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla. "

On through the forest they trudged looking
about for a favourable location, and finally
selected a hard- wood lot in the centre of the
township of Sunnidale. Here, with the help of
a hired, expert axe-man, they soon had half an
acre cleared of its "splendid maples and beeches

A BUSH TAVERN

"As the dancing flames lit up the room, they revealed
a log bedstead in the darkest corner, . . . stools or mere
pieces of log sawn short off.' "

which it seemed almost a profanation to
destroy." In quick order they erected a log
shanty, twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide,
"roofed with wooden troughs and 'chinked'
with slats and moss .... At one end an open
fire-placej at the other sumptuous beds laid on
flatted logs, cushioned with soft hemlock twigs,
redolent of turpentine and health."

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL

121

Thompson gives an interesting account of the
method of clearing the land, and in this connec-
tion points out that in the Sunnidale district
some of the young women were almost as expert
with the axe as the men. One of these, Mary — ,
" daughter of an emigrant from the county of
Galway . . . became in time a 'firstrate' chopper,
and would yield to none
of the new settlers in the
dexterity with which
she would fell, brush,
and cut up maple or
beech." She and her
elder sister, " neither of
them older than eigh-
teen, would start before
day-break to the nearest
store, seventeen miles
off, and return the same
evening laden each with
a full sack flung across
the shoulder, containing
about a bushel and a half,
or ninety pounds weight
of potatoes." One of
Mary's neighbours a
young lad, Johnny, a
son of one of the early
Scotch settlers in the
Newcastle district, who

was about her own age, was a famous axe-man.
Mary was anxious to try her skill with the
young Scot and got her brother, Patsy, who was
Johnny's working-mate, to vacate his place for
her. She proved herself quite as skillful as

MARY'S LAST TREE
"She miscalculated her final
cut and the side nearest to
Mary springing suddenly out,
struck" her a blow so severe as
to destroy life instantaneous
ly."

122

Johnny, and, it would seem, lost her heart to
him. The sequel shows to what perils the
women of Ontario were subjected in pioneer
days. One day Mary was felling a huge yellow
birch. As she neared the end of her work, her
mind seemed to wander from her task and "she
miscalculated her final cut and the birch, over-
balancing, split upwards, and the side nearest
to Mary, springing suddenly out, struck her a
blow so severe as to destroy life instantaneously
.... In a decent coffin, contrived after many
unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy,
the unfortunate girl was earned to her grave,
in the same field which she had assisted to
clear." Thompson adds: "Many years have
rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made
grave, and it may be that Johnny has forgotten
his first love; but I was told, that no other has
yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped
to make his 'bonny bride/

The Thompsons had some heart-breaking
experiences. "We had," writes Thompson,
"with infinite labour managed to clear off a
small patch of ground, which we sowed with
spring wheat, and watched its growth with most
intense anxiety until it attained a height of ten
inches, and began to put forth tender ears ....
But one day in August, occurred a hailstorm
such as is seldom experienced in half a century.
A perfect cataract of ice fell upon our hapless
wheat crop. Flattened hailstones, measuring
two and a half inches in diameter and seven and
a half in circumference, covered the ground
several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was

ON THE PKNETANG TRAIL 123

utterly destroyed, and with it all our hopes of
plenty for that year.''

One of the worst pests the early settlers had
to contend with was the wild pigeons, a bird
that, so far as is known, is now extinct. These
swept down on the land in myriads and grain
and pea fields were stripped clean by them. In
several other cases in this book these birds have
been referred to, but Thompson's account of
them is most interesting. There was a pigeon-
roost a few miles distant from where he and his
brothers had settled. To this roost at the proper
season "men, women, and children went by the
hundred, some with guns, but the majority with
baskets, to pick up the countless birds that had
been disabled by the fall of great branches
broken off by the weight of their roosting com-
rades overhead. The women skinned the birds,
cut off the plump breasts, throwing the remain-
der away, and packed them in barrels with salt,
for keeping."

Thompson points out that these pigeons were
an important factor in connection with the
vegetation of these early days. He noticed that
when land had been burnt over it was almost
immediately followed by "a spontaneous growth,
first of fireweed or wild lettuce, and secondly
by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick as to
choke one another. At other spots, where pine
trees had stood for a century, the outcome of
their destruction by fire was invariably a thick
growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen
variety." Thompson was not content with
merely observing this seemingly miraculous
growth of new vegetation, he investigated the

]24 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

matter. "I scooped up," he writes, "a panful
of black soil from our clearing, washed it, and
got a small tea-cupful of cherry stones, exactly
similar to those growing in the forest." He
naturally concluded that the pigeons were
responsible for the strange growth of cherry
and raspberry in the burnt lands.

Becoming dissatisfied with their Sunnidale lot,
the Thompsons exchanged it for one in Nottaw-
asaga in the settlement called the Scotch line,
where dwelt Campbells, McGillivrays, McDiar-
mids, etc., very few of whom were able to speak
a word of English. Their life here was similar
to that of other settlers whose stories have
already been told. One incident is worthy of
record as it shows the primitive condition of
things in a community only thirty-four miles
from Barrie. Flora McAlmon, the wife of Mal-
colm McAlmon, the most popular woman in the
Scotch line settlement, died in childbirth, largely
due to the fact that no skilled physician or
experienced midwife was at hand. Her brother
came to the Thompsons to borrow pine boards
to make a coffin. Excepting for some pine they
had cut down and sawn up, "there was not,"
says Thompson, "a foot of sawn lumber in the
settlement, and scarcely a hammer or a nail
either, but what we possessed ourselves. So,
being very sorry for their affliction, I told them
they should have the coffin by next morning;
and I set to work myself, made a tolerably hand-
some bo% stained in black, of the right shape
and dimensions, and gave it to them at the
appointed hour." And in this rude coffin the
weeping bearers bore the remains of fair Flora

ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 125

McAlmon " through tangled brushwood and
round upturned roots and cradle-holes ... to the
chosen grave in the wilderness where now, I
hear, stands a small Presbyterian Church in the
village of Duntroon."

On several occasions Samuel Thompson had
walked to Toronto, a distance of ninety miles.
In 1834, before leaving Sunnidale, he made his
first trip, " equipped only with an umbrella and
a blue bag, . . . containing some articles of
clothing." The first part of his way was over
a road strewn with logs over which he had to
jump every few feet. Rain came on, and as
night approached he found himself far from any
human habitation. He returned to "a newly-
chopped and partially-logged clearing" he had
passed on the way. Here he found a small log
hut in which the axe-men, who had been at work,
had left some fire. He " collected the half -con-
sumed brands from the still blazing log-heaps,
to keep some warmth during the night, and then
lay down on the round logs in the hope of
wooing sleep."

"But," he adds, "this was not to be. At
about nine o'clock there arose in the woods,
first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a sin-
gle yelp; then two or three at intervals. Again
a silence, lasting perhaps five minutes. This
kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and
coming nearer and again nearer, until it became
impossible to mistake it for aught but the howl-
ing of wolves. The clearing might be five or six
acres. Scattered ovor it were partially or
wholly burnt log-heaps. I knew that wolves
would not be likely to venture among the fires,

126 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

and that I was practically safe I, however,

kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil
brutes continued their concert of fiendish dis-
cords . . . for many, many long hours, until the
glad beams of morning peeped through the
trees; when the wolves ceased their serenade,
and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella
for a pillow."

When he awoke, he continued his journey to
Bradford, where he was hospitably entertained
by Mr. Thomas Drury, and given a letter of
introduction to a man of whom he "had occasion-
ally heard in the bush, one William Lyon Mac-
kenzie." The remainder of his journey was
"accomplished by stage — an old-fashioned con-
veyance enough, swung on leather straps, and
subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones
on the rough road, innocent of Macadam, and
full of the deepest ruts."

When the Thompsons left London for Canada,
they were sanguine "of returning in the course
of six or seven years, with plenty of money to
enrich," and perhaps bring back with them,
their mother and unmarried sisters. In the
meantime the sisters came to Canada and found
life on the bush farm totally unsuited to their
tastes. The brothers, too, were far from satis-
fied. Their holding promised them only years
of unremitting toil, with but a small return.
They saw other opportunities and so disposed
of their property, Thomas and Isaac moving
with their sisters to a rented farm at Bradford
and Samuel going to Toronto, where he was long
to play an active part in the business and intel-
lectual life of the community.

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET

WHEN YONGE STREET WAS AN INDIAN TRAIL

"When I first knew Toronto there were not
more than two or three brick buildings between
the market and Yonge Street. There was not
a building of any kind on the west side of Yonge
between Queen and Bloor. Yonge Street north
of Toronto was not then the straight highway
it is now, but twisted and turned in all direc-
tions to avoid the hills. About Unionville the
country was covered with magnificent pine.
People wondered how they would ever get rid
of it all, and trees, as straight as a ruler and as
free from blemish as a race horse, were cut down
and the logs burned in heaps. Ropes and
harness were made from home-grown flax, and
almost every home had its wheel and loom where
clothing for the family was made. The first
cooking stove seen in Markham, brought in by
a Yankee peddler named Fish, did not have an
oven attachment but only holes in which pots
could be placed. Bread was baked in pans set
in coals. A black-ash swamp near Unionville
was full of wolves. In the evenings bears
came into the oat fields, and, gathering the heads
together in their fore paws, feasted in peace on
the ripening grain."

All this was given from the personal recol-
lections of Simon Miller, who was living in

127

128 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Unionville in 1898. Through his immediate
ancestors Mr. Miller was connected with the
very earliest stages in the history of what is now
the metropolitan district of which Toronto is
the centre. One of his most prized possessions
was a document dated "Navy Hall, 29th of
April, 1793," signed by J. G. Simcoe, the first
governor of Upper Canada, and addressed to
the officer commanding at Niagara. This docu-
ment was a command to the officer in question
"to permit Nicholas Miller, Asa Johnson, Jacob
Phillips, Abraham and Isaac Devins, and Jacob
Schooner" to bring in free of duty from the
United States "such goods and effects as house-
hold furniture, chairs, tables, chests of cloth-
ing," etc. The Nicholas Miller mentioned in
this document was the grandfather of Simon,
and Isaac Devins was the grandfather of
Simon's wife.

The original home of the Millers was lot
thirty-four on the first of Markham, the Yonge
Street farm later on occupied by David James.
This and the old John Lyon farm were the first
two for which patents were issued in Markham.
The log cabin built on the Miller lot was prob-
ably the first house erected in Markham, and the
body of Grandfather Miller, who died in 1810,
is believed to have been the first buried in the
old cemetery at Richmond Hill.

Three of Simon Miller's uncles on his mother's
side took part in the War of 1812-15. These were
Kennedys, after whose family the old "Kennedy
Road" was named. One lost a leg at Queens-
ton while charging with Brock in an effort to
recapture the gun taken earlier in the morning

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 129

by the Americans and then turned against the
British. A Major, of the well known family of
that name in Pickering, had a piece of flesh
flicked from his leg by the same discharge. Mr.
Miller's mother heard the explosion when the
old fort at York was blown up as the Americans
entered the town after capturing it, and Mr.
Miller himself as a lad heard the boom of the
first gun fired in the skirmish at Montgomery's
Tavern in 'thirty-seven.

''After school had been hastily dismissed on
the latter occasion and 1 was on my way home,"
said Mr. Miller, "I met a company of High-
landers headed by skirling bagpipes coming out
of Vaughan, on their way to join Mackenzie, but
as the latter was already in retreat they were
too late for the affair. For weeks afterwards
loads of prisoners passed our door on Yonge
Street on the way to Toronto to stand trial for
high treason. Many of those in charge of the
prisoners had themselves been implicated in the
rising and took this means of turning aside sus-
picion from themselves. The worst of the direct
effects of the rebellion was not the tearing of
men from their families. It was the feuds,
lasting for years, which originated at that time.
Years afterwards, 'you are a rebel' or 'the son
of a rebel' was the signal for a fight. When
men gathered at grist-mill or for the annual
'training day' the whiskey hardly started
flowing before a fight commenced in some cor-
ner, and in a short time the row became general.

"One of the worst consequences of the free-
dom with which liquor was to be obtained at
this period," continued Mr. Miller, "was seen

130 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

in the case of the Indians. All the Indians of
that day from the Lake Simcoe and Georgian
Bay country came to Toronto once a year to
receive money and goods, which the Govern-
ment gave them in return for the surrender of
their lands. I have seen them coming down
Yonge Street in twos and threes, magnificent
specimens of manhood, their head-dresses decor-
ated with eagle feathers, and carrying war
spears in their hands. Too often they went back
in a very different condition. The white man
knew the Indian's fondness for whiskey, and
whites waylaid these children of the forest and
supplied them freely with firewater in exchange
for the goods the Indians had received from the
Government. Frequently, by the time the red
men reached Thornhill on their way home, they
had neither goods, blankets, nor money, and had
to beg food for maintenance on the rest of the
journey northward. Notwithstanding the man-
ner in whicli they had been robbed, and the fact
that they were armed, I never heard of a white
man being killed by them. Eventually, however,
the scandal became so great that the Govern-
ment adopted the plan of carrying the annuities
for the Indians to their reserves and paying
them there.

"In 1822, and again in 1823, grandfather and
father found it necessary to go to Philadelphia
to look after some property interests that had
not been disposed of when the family left
Pennsylvania. Both journeys were made on
horseback. Three years later a third journey
was made to the Quaker city, but this time in
comparative comfort. From Buffalo to New

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 131

York passage was taken by Erie Canal boats,
and from New York to Philadelphia by ocean
vessel. When I went to the States in 'forty-
seven, I took boat from Toronto to Lewiston,
from Lewiston to the Falls by horse-car with
the horses driven tandem, and from the Falls to
Buffalo by a train which ran on wooden rails
covered with strips of iron."

Henry Home, for many years postmaster at
Langstaff, in a pamphlet published in the last
century, gave some particulars of the difficulties
encountered in travel at a still later date than
that mentioned by Mr. Miller. Mr. Home made
a trip to Toronto in the fall of 'fifty-two by the
section of the old Northern Railway then open.
There were no passenger cars on the line. Pas-
sengers had to stand up, and when the engine
required water the train was held up while the
crew dipped the necessary water from open
ditches beside the track.

When the Millers and Devins first settled in
Markham there was no grist-mill anywhere
within reach and all the flour used in the neigh-
bourhood was ground in a coffee-mill Grand-
father Miller had brought with him from Phil-
adelphia. At a later stage a man named Thorne
established a hundred-barrel mill and general
store at the place which bears his name. Big as
his mill was, it was unable to cope with the trade
that came to it. "I have seen," said Mr. Miller,
"a procession of wagons loaded with wheat that
kept the mill running until ten at night. Thome
was a kind-hearted man, and many poor settlers
in Ad jala and Tecumseh were indebted to him
for the flour necessary to carry them through

132 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

until the following harvest. His end was an
unhappy one, though. Embarrassed by unfor-
tunate speculations in wheat he committed
suicide.

Burials were simple affairs among the pion-
eers. In one case the body of a man who had no
relatives in the country, wras enclosed in a coffin
made of slabs split from a basswood tree and
buried on his own farm. In fact a number of the
first settlers were interred on the lots taken up
by them. When the lots afterwards changed
hands the bodies were in some cases removed.
In others, agreements were made for the main-
tenance of the burial plots. But who is to
enforce such agreements when even the descen-
dants of the original owners of the property
are far away? Inevitably the ground made
sacred by the dust below will come under the
plow, and some day, when a ditch is being dug or
a foundation laid, men of a new generation will
wonder what tragedy was hidden with the bones
then brought to light."

THE QUEEN'S BUSH

When I was a boy "The Queen's Bush" was
frequently mentioned in conversation in much
the same way as "The Peace River Country"
is now. The term was then applied to the
Huron tract, a territory stretching from about
Goderich to Georgian Bay, and in which set-
tlements were just beginning to be formed.
The territorial description was a moving one,
however, and was applied generally to any lands
which were still largely in possession of the

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 133

Crown; and, as lands passed from the Crown
into the hands of settlers moving west, and still
further west, the description moved with the
tide of settlement.

The story that follows was told to me in 1906
by John Claughton, who remembered when the
name of Queen's Bush covered territory as far
east as the township of Uxbridge. The con-
ditions under which I fell in with Mr. Claughton
were in themselves a striking illustration of the
marvellous change wrought in Ontario in the
course of one lifetime. I was on my way from
Barrie to Whitby, driving on that occasion,
when night found me with a very tired horse,
near Epsom, in the township of Beach. There
was not a house of public accommodation within
miles, and yet Mr. Claughton, who proved the
Good Samaritan in a time of need, remembered
when Epsom had two hotels; Prince Albert,
three; and Utica and Manchester, two each — all
the places named being within a few miles of
each other.

"At that time," said Mr. Claughton, " farmers
from Georgina, Brock, Uxbridge, and Scott all
teamed their wheat to Whitby or Oshawa.
When this traffiic was at its height there would
be a string of teams stretching as far as the eye
could reach and all moving south. It was
almost impossible to drive north then because
of the traffic moving in the opposite direction.
That was when the old plank road extended
from Manchester to Whitby. Much of the plank
for that road was cut in the Paxton mill at Port
Perry. There were five toll gates on the high-
way, and the toll for the round trip was three

134 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

York shillings.1 The wheat taken over it to
Whitby was shipped to Oswego and thence to
England. The wheat taken to Oshawa was
ground in the Gibb's mill."

Mr. Claughton's memory, and what he had
heard from his parents, covered a period ante-
dating even the time of the old plank road. He
told how the Paxton's, when they first settled
near the site of the Dryden farm, had to drive
thirty miles to Toronto for household supplies.

AWAITING THEIR TURN TO UNLOAD

"When this traffic was at its height there would be a
string of teams stretching as far as the eye could reach
and all moving south. ' '

"I can remember," he said, "when what was
practically a solid bush extended all the way
from Epsom to Port Perry. I have seen mast
timber, seventy to eighty feet long, taken out
of Reach, four or five teams being required for
the hauling. I have seen the best hardwood

JA York shilling, equivalent to twelve and one half cents,
was a common unit of calculation in early days.

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 135

sold in Whitby at a dollar a cord. I have seen
ten acres covered by great bonfires in which the
best of pine, elm, and maple were burning.
When, after such prodigal waste, timber began
to grow scarce in the neighbourhood, people
went to 'The Queen's Bush' in Uxbridge town-
ship and helped themselves, there being no one
there to say them nay.

''One night, after having left Uxbridge at
eight o'clock, I heard a pack of wolves howling
in the Black River swamp. There were many
wolves in the swamp on the thirteenth of Reach
and sheep had to be penned up at night for pro-
tection. A man named Shaw was on his way
home carrying a heavy Bible he had borrowed
from a neighbour when he met a bear. He drop-
ped the Bible and ran, the sacred volume being
recovered unharmed next day. One Sunday,
when I was out walking near Epsom, three deer
suddenly rose up in a small clearing almost in
front of me.

"The first threshing-machine used in the
neighbourhood was one of the old ' pepper-mills.'
One man raked the straw as it came from the
cylinder, a second raked it a little further, and
a third pitched it to one side. If there were
more than one day's threshing, the grain on
the floor had to be cleaned up before threshing
could go on."

" Where are the pioneers and their descen-
dants'?" I asked.

The answer came in something like a wail:
"Gone, gone — gone almost to the last man and
the last woman. The bodies of the pioneers lie
in neglected or forgotten cemeteries. Their

J36

descendants have been scattered as if by the four
winds of heaven. In many cases even the names
are forgotten. Of the families living between
Whitby and Oshawa in the 'forties I do not
believe one remains to-day. Between Man-
chester and Whitby it is much the same.
Only two or three remain between Epsom
and Manchester."

Still, although so few of the children or
grandchildren remain where their families first
settled, there is occasional evidence of a tie yet
connecting them with the place where the light
of day was first seen. One such evidence I found
near Gamebridge while on this same journey.
There a school library had been provided by the
late Andrew Gunn, one of the founders of Gunns
Limited, in memory of boyhood days spent in
the bush when his father settled on the east side
of Lake Simcoe. At Utica, again, I had seen
" Memory Hall," which had been erected by
T. W. Home, one of the contractors for the
building of the King Edward Hotel, Toronto,
this being Mr. Home's contribution to the
community life of the section his parents
had helped to create.

A STURDY YOUNG TRAVELLER

This story has its beginning in Scotland;
it touches North Carolina, and has its closing
scenes in the township of Eldon. It begins with
the eighteenth year of the past century, and
almost the whole period is covered by a life that
had not, when the story was told in 1910, run
its course. Colin McFadyen, believed to be the

BY WAY OP YONGE STREET 137

oldest resident then in Eldon, at that time
in his ninetieth year, but still bright of eye
and with none of the ashen hue of age, gave
the particulars.

Shortly after the end of the Napoleonic wars
times were desperately hard in the old land and
men began to turn their eyes in the direction of
the New World, where people were fewer and
opportunities greater. Among those who looked
abroad were Mr. McFadyen's father and some
of his friends. They finally determined to start
for Wilmington, Delaware, where an acquain-
tance was already engaged in the woollen
industry.

"It was no palace steamer in which father and
his friends arranged to make the journey/' said
Mr. McPadyen. "It was an old sailing ship
that had years before been condemned as unfit
for the carrying of passengers. Our people did
not know this at the time, and gladly paid the
seven or eight pounds per head demanded for
their passage to America. The vessel, although
very old, was a fairly good sailer. Once during
the voyage another craft was seen to be follow-
ing. Fearing that she might be a pirate, the
captain put on full sail and the possible enemy
was left 'hull down/ The old vessel proved
more seaworthy than was expected, as she was
able shortly afterwards to ride in safety through
a West Indian hurricane.

"At length Wilmington was reached, but the
place did not suit the people, and they deter-
mined to go on to North Carolina, and it was
there that I was born. Eventually they tired of
Carolina. Although my uncle held slaves, my

138 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

father objected strongly to the system, and he
objected also to taking the oath of allegiance to
the United States, as he was being constantly
urged to do. Attention was thus naturally
directed towards Canada and one of the party
was sent to spy out the land. The investigation
proved satisfactory and, in 1828, a party consist-
ing of my father (Archie McFadyen), Archie
McMillan, Colin Campbell, and their families
determined to set out for the north.

THE WHOLE DISTANCE BY WAGON

"The journey from Carolina to Hogg's Hollow, where we
first located, occupied seven weeks, and on only two nights
did we have the shelter of a roof. ' '

"It was a genuine trek. The whole distance
was covered in wagons, the men and boys walk-
ing alongside the rude vehicles. I walked every
foot of the way myself, although then only nine
years old. The journey from Carolina to
Hogg's Hollow, where we first located, occupied
seven weeks, and on only two nights did we have
the shelter of a roof. One of these two nights
we spent in a vacant house. Where did we

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 139

sleep the other nights? On the ground, with a
blanket beneath and the blue sky above. If
it looked like rain we crawled under the wagons,
which were covered with canvas. One of my
brothers was born on the way — that occurred
in Virginia — but this was allowed to delay us
for only one day.

"Yes, the road was none too smooth," Mr.
McFadyen went on. "We climbed mountains,
up the face of which the horses could barely
haul their loads. In going down the other
side the men had to apply brakes to prevent the
wagons from running on top of the animals. We
crossed rivers, sometimes over bridges, but fre-
quently at fords. In many cases bridge tolls
were levied not only on teams, but on pedes-
trians as well. In order to reduce the charges
we sent the wagons over the bridges, while the
men and women in the party crossed on the
backs of horses as these swam the streams.

"We crossed the Niagara River at Black
Rock, the crossing being made in a ferry worked
by horses with treadmill power. When we
reached the Humber River, six miles out from
Little York, as Toronto was then called, we
found the bridge gone, and we had to wade the
stream. While crossing the water came into the
boxes of the wagons, and in going up the
opposite bank it seemed at times as if the horses
would fall back on top of the vehicles."

The party finally reached Hogg's Hollow and
settled there for a year. Then they set out for
their permanent home in the township of Eldon.
This was the worst of the whole journey. Once,
when they struck a cedar swamp, the wagons

140

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

sank to the axles and a whole day was spent in
going four miles. The horses were barely able
to pull the wagons through the slime, and the
men had to carry the luggage on their shoulders.
The wagons could not be taken beyond Uxbridge,
the rest of the way to lot seven on the first of
Eldon being a blazed trail. All told, five days
were spent in making a journey that an auto-
mobile would cover now in less than two hours of
a summer afternoon.

" There was not a tree cut on the place when
we arrived," said Mr. McFadyen as he pro-

SAVING THE BRIDGE TOLL

Deeded to tell of conditions in the new home,
"but in three days we had a cabin built. It was
of course made of logs, with the spaces between
the logs filled with moss and the roof made of
split basswood. As we had no feed left we had
to get rid of the horses, and father traded one
for a steer and twelve bushels of wheat. He
borrowed a yoke of oxen to bring the wheat
home. This was ground into flour between two

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 141

grindstones that were made to revolve with a
crank turned by hand. The wheat was poured
by hand through a hole in the tipper stone.
Between dark and bedtime enough would be
ground to provide for the next day's needs.
Later on we thought we were well off when we
got a coffee-mill to do the grinding.

"It was hard enough to get along in the early
days. Potatoes and corn were our chief reliance,
and the only ready money was earned by sailing
on the lakes. We found work enough at home,
however, — cutting down trees in winter, split-
ting rails and fencing in spring, and burning
fallows in summer. The last was hard work.
I was my father's principal helper, and we had
to keep moving the burning logs closer and
closer together while the heat of fire and sun
combined caused the perspiration to pour from
us in streams.

"It was a lawless time, too, in the early days.
Dougall Carmichael, my mother's brother, came
out to us in 1832. He walked from Sutton by
the road, after having his goods landed at
Beaverton. When he went to Beaverton to
secure the goods, some men there began shoot-
ing and my uncle, fearing for his life, fled.
Returning later he found a chest broken into and
sixty sovereigns and some clothing stolen.
Years afterwards, when I was returning from
Mount Albert, where I had been with a load of
grain, a man told me he knew of the robbery
and that the robber had buried the gold under
his hearthstone near Beaverton.

4 'Another time when I was driving to Toronto
with a load of grain I had with me a couple of wolf

142 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

skins, which a man in Toronto had agreed to
buy. I had stopped at Markham to feed the horses.
That was in the days of the 'Markham gang'
and Markham had a bad name. Consequently
while waiting in the hotel until my horses were
through feeding, I kept my eye on my sleigh.
But a cutter drove up alongside as I watched,
my skins were whisked into it and the rig was
out of sight before I could pursue. ' '

This reference to the wolf skins naturally
brought up hunting stories, and once Mr.
McFadyen got started on this line the stories
came thick and fast.

"When father killed the steer we had secured
in exchange for one of our horses, he found it
necessary to go to a neighbour's for salt with
which to cure the meat. When on his way
back, and in the middle of the 'big swamp' of
Thorah, there was a sudden and terrific howling
from a pack of wolves — a howling that seemed to
make the woods fairly tremble. Father dropped
the salt and ran back to the neighbour's, where
he stayed all night. When he returned to the
place where he had dropped the bag, he found
the ground tramped up as if a herd of cattle had
passed by. There must have been a large num-
ber of wolves in that pack.

"The wolves were particularly destructive on
domestic animals. A three-year-old steer belong-
ing to the McMillans was pulled down in a
swampy place, and all of the animal eaten except
the portion under water. No less than eighteen
sheep belonging to us were killed in one night.

"In order to check the marauders I bought
a trap and caught one wolf with it. I set it

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 143

again, but the next wolf carried the trap away
with him. I followed the trail with a dog, but
could get no trace of either wolf or trap. I then
secured another trap, fastened it with a trace-
chain, and in this I captured a number of the
beasts. Generally a wolf was badly cowed by
being caught and I could dispatch the brute with
an axe; but one fellow that I found soon after
the trap teeth had been sprung on him was very
fierce, and I had to stand at a safe distance and
shoot him with a rifle. Finally one big wolf
actually smashed the trace-chain and got away
with the second trap. I followed the trail until
I could see the bushes shake in which the brute
had hidden. I fired at the spot, and then, when
I saw the bushes move a little further on, aimed
at that point and fired again. Everything then
seemed quiet and I got down on my knees and
peered under the bushes. The wolf was lying
there all right, but I fired another shot to make
sure, and then brought him out. We received a
bounty of six dollars for each wolf killed, but
one dollar had to be paid a magistrate for the
certificate on which payment was made. The
hides were of no value if taken in summer, but
there was always sale for a good winter pelt."
Mr. McFadyen's adventures were not confined
to wolves. Many a bear also fell before his rifle.
Once, he treed a bear in a big elm and with
the first shot put a bullet through the animal's
heart. On another occasion he wounded a bear,
and, as it was getting dark, he was unable to
follow the trail. Next morning the hunt was
resumed and bruin was seen seated by a punky
log and using the powdered fibre as a salve for

144 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

his wound. "It seemed almost cruel to kill the
animal under such circumstances," said Mr.
McFadyen in describing the adventure to a
friend. "But when the excitement of the chase
was on, and I remembered the havoc wrought
by the black-coated enemy, I did not stop to
think of this, and a second shot finished
the business."

Sometimes the hunter found himself hunted.
One Sunday, as Mr. McFadyen was on his way
to church, he saw a bear and two cubs in the
oat field. The old bear ran off and Mr. Mc-
Fadyen tried to catch one of the cubs, but he
was glad to abandon the effort when he found
mother bruin after him. On another occasion
Colin McLachlin, a neighbour, shot and wounded
a bear. When he endeavoured to dispatch the
animal with an axe, the bear knocked the axe
to one side and grabbed McLachlin 's thigh. A
brother, who fortunately happened to be present,
then seized the axe and killed the bear with a
stroke. But even in death the animal held on,
and it was necessary to pry the brute's jaws
apart before the thigh on which they had fas-
tened could be released.

A little thing like lacerated flesh did not count
in those days. People were inured to pain and
all were qualified to render first aid to the
wounded. Once, when a neighbour's head had
been laid open with an axe, Mr. McFadyen him-
self sheared away the hair and patched up the
wound.

On another occasion a settler was so badly
frozen that a number of his fingers had to be
amputated. A doctor from Newmarket was

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 145

called in to perform the operation. The charge
was forty dollars. Later on it was found that
sufficient had not been taken off the little finger,
but it was considered hardly worth while
to risk having to pay another forty dollars
for a trifle like that. Accordingly a neighbour
sharpened a jack-knife and a chisel; with a few
deft cuts the flesh was laid open with the knife,
turned back with the fingers, and then, with one
stroke of a hammer on the chisel, the protruding
bone was cut off with neatness and dispatch.
The skin was next put back in place and home-
made salves did the rest.

Mr. McFadyen's stories of hunting adventures
did not all have the scene laid in the wilds of
Eldon and Thorah. When he was living in North
Carolina, great black snakes, not poisonous,
played havoc with the family's flock of chickens.
One night his sister heard a commotion in the
poultry yard and on going out found a snake
in possession of a chicken and in the act of
climbing a tree with the prey. Miss McFadyen
seized a pitch pine torch, and with this burned
the snake so badly that it dropped the fowl and
wriggled up the tree. Next morning the snake
was still in the tree.

At another time the mother of the family
went to the meat-house for a piece of meat. As
she was in the act of looking up, a rattlesnake
struck at her foot. There was no fainting, not
even a shriek; instead there was a quick motion
of the hand, the rattler was seized by the tail,
a motion as in " cracking" a whip followed, and
next a very much surprised rattler lay on the
ground with its back broken.

146 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

TEAMING GRAIN AND PROVISIONS

* ' There were seven of us, father, mother, four
boys and one girl, when we moved into Thorah
in "1831," said Alex. McDougall. "It was Sep-
tember when we arrived, and the chill of autumn
was already in the air. There was not a tree
cut on the place, outside of the small space
covered by a little shanty in which we were to
lodge, and it was too late to produce food to
carry us over the winter. In order to provide
for his family — I was then a lad of fourteen—
father took jobs threshing grain with a flail.
His pay was in wheat, and the nearest point at
which wheat could be ground into flour was at
Newmarket, We boys, in the meantime, were
busy with our axes, and by spring we had
chopped fifteen acres of bush.

"Some of neighbours were worse off than
ourselves. One man, with nine children, was
forced to carry all the grain he used that first
winter to Newmarket on his back, and to carry
the flour back in the same way. He was kept
going and coming all winter, because no sooner
had he carried in one load of flour than he had
to start back for another.

"Even after we had begun to produce a sur-
plus of grain on our place it was still hard
enough for us to live. All of the first crops
were cut with the sickle and threshed with a
flail. The grain was cleaned by throwing it up
in the air from a sheet, The surplus wheat was
sold at fifty cents per bushel, but sometimes it
was so rusted that we could not sell it at all. A
little later on Beaverton traffic was diverted

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 147

from the Newmarket route towards Wliitby, and
our wheat was sold at Manchester at the end
of the old sixteen-mile plank road leading north
from Whitby. In order to make the journey
in one day with a team it was necessary to start
at four o'clock in the morning, and even then
we did not reach Manchester until dark. The
return journey was not made until next day.
I have seen sixty teams in Manchester over
night, There was plenty of stable room for the
horses, but the men had to sleep two or three
in a bed and, in some cases, on the floor of the
bar or sitting-room. Frequently good wheat,
marketed at such cost in hard labour, was sold
at sixty cents per bushel. Grain of poorer
quality, or not so well cleaned, sold for less.

"Everything in the way of supplies was
scarce in the early days. I have known people to
drive up here from Cannington to get straw with
which to carry their stock over until the cattle
could get out and browse in the woods. Still
there was no actual suffering from want of food.
If one had a little surplus, those who were
short were always welcome to share in the
bounty. Then the woods were filled with deer,
and Indians brought us fish from the lake,
which they exchanged with us for flour and pork.

"One of the great privations at the begin-
ning was in the long intervals between regular
religious observances. I remember when we
were crossing the ocean, William Hunter, who
afterwards settled in Chingacousy, came to our
quarters and had prayers with us every night
and morning. After we arrived at our new home
the first regular services were held by the Rev.

148 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Mr. McMurchy, who came over from Eldon
township for the purpose. John Gunn, father of
the founders of Gunn's Limited, was a volunteer
helper. He made a regular practice of reading
Scriptures and praying with the old people of
the settlement, who, owing to growing infirm-
ities, were unable to attend the regular church
services that were held. Daniel Cameron was
another who helped in this same way."

"When church services were held, people
travelled as much as thirty miles to take part/'
said Angus McDougall, the son of the speaker.
"I have known them, even in my time, to come
in lumber-wagons from as far as Sutton on the
south, Uptergrove on the north, and Woodville
on the west to the old stone church at Beaverton.
Their earnestness was shown not only in the
distance they travelled but in the patience with
which they sat through services lasting from
eleven o'clock till four, while their simple faith
and devout thankfulness were voiced in the
Psalms which filled the old church with a stern
melody. Duncan Gillespie was the precentor.
He read the Psalms line by line, and then led
the congregation as they sang in praise and
thanksgiving. The favourite Psalms were the
one hundred and third and one hundred and
twenty-third :

'Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God

And not forgetful be,
Of all the gracious benefits

He hath bestowed on thee.
Who with abundance of good things

Doth satisfy thy mouth

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 149

So that even as the eagle's age
Renewed is thy youth.'

Those who had not met him outside of his
Toronto home would never have dreamed that
Donald Gunn, one of the first members of the firm
that is now Gunn's Limited, had gone through an
experience little different from that of Mr.
McDougall. Straight and active as a man of
thirty, when nearly seventy, and with the calm
of one upon whom care had never rested, he was
far from looking the part of a pioneer who had
borne the burden of the old-time harvest and the
fierce heat of the logging bee that preceded it.
Still there were few men who had a larger part
in the trials and privations of the days that are
gone. The John Gunn, referred to by Mr.
McDougall, was his father, and Donald was one
of nine sons whose axes cleared the old home-
stead that now forms the basis of Dunrobin farm
north of Beaverton.

Day after day he swung the cradle, leaving
four or five acres of levelled grain to show for
his day's work. In the beginning he did more
than this. He put in ten hours a day cradling on
the farm of Colonel Cameron, and did the cut-
ting at home in the early morning and late even-
ing. In all this he was well aided by another
member of the family — Dr. Gunn, famous all
over the Huron tract for his skill as a surgeon.

"The flail had pretty well gone out before my
time," said Mr. Gunn, "and the sickle was a
thing of the past. But I have teamed a good
many hundred bushels of grain to Manchester
or Whitby that had been cut with a cradle.

150

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 151

When we teamed all the way to Whitby, our
practice was to make Manchester the first stage
of the journey, and then double up the load there
and let one team take it the rest of the way.
The start from home was made at midnight, and
Manchester was usually reached at daybreak.
Fifty-five bushels was a load, and we frequently
sold, for fifty or sixty cents per bushel, wheat
that had been cut with a cradle and hauled all
the way to market. I have seen as many as
seventy of these grain teams at Manchester in
a day, and a dozen men have frequently had to
sleep on the floor in a room fifteen by fifteen.
Manchester, which you might go through now
almost without knowing it, was then the greatest
grain market in Canada. Mr. Currie, father-in-
law of Colonel Paterson, K.C., was one of the
principal buyers; the father of Dr. Warren of
Whitby was another; and Adam Gordon, who
owned the farm afterwards belonging to 'Bay-
side' Smith, and now part of the hospital site
on the lake shore at Whitby, was a third. Mr.
Perry was amongst the later buyers. Drinking
was as common there as it was at other places
in Ontario at the time, and few of those
who marketed the grain, at such a cost in labour
and for so little in return, went home sober.

1 'I generally managed to have a load both
ways," went on Mr. Gunn. "On my way back
I picked up a cargo of oats, pork, etc., and
brought it to our home in Thorah, on the way
to the lumber camps in Magnetewan. The start
from home for the lumber camps was usually
made at four o'clock in the morning, in the midst
of intense darkness, and with the thermometer

152 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

not infrequently ranging around thirty below
zero. I always carried shovels, because it was
often necessary to dig through snow five feet
deep in order to allow teams, met on the road, to
get past. No, I never felt cold. I wore mocas-
sins, and a plaid over the chest, and always
walked when going up hill. These trips occu-
pied three days going and three days returning."

"I remember another kind of experience in
the deep snow of the early days," put in Mrs.
Gunn, who had been listening to the story of
hardships in which she shared. "It was shortly
after we were married. We had gone down to
Stormont on a visit to my old home. A great
storm came up while we were there, and Mr.
Gunn decided to leave me with my friends a
while longer, but to start for home himself. He
left at nine in the morning, and after plowing
through the snow for a mile, managed to get
back to where I was stopping at two in the after-
noon, and had to remain there for a fortnight
before the road was opened up."

"As there were nine of us on the home place,
and it was only a hundred acre farm, we had to
engage in a lot of outside work in order to make
money to keep things going," Mr. Gunn went
on. "I made a heap of money with a team of
horses taken into the lumber camps to skid logs
in winter. After doing this I have come home in
March and helped to cut down twelve or thirteen
acres of bush before spring. Before the railway
came through here I teamed store goods to
Beaverton from Belle Ewart across Lake Simcoe
on the ice, the goods having been carried as
far as Belle Ewart by the old Northern. The

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 153

first time we went to Toronto from here, we
went by the old Emily May to Belle Ewart, and
from there by rail."

Of Mr. Gunn's father and his work, I heard
more from Mr. Gunn's old neighbours than from
himself. Mr. Gunn, the elder, was not only a
minister to the spiritual wants of the people
in the days spoken of, but he cured the bodily
ills of the" afflicted as well. Although not a phy-
sician he had an extensive knowledge of med-
icine, possessed a rare skill in simple sur-

A LOGGING BEE

gery, and cared for the sick and suffering over
an area of twenty-five miles.

He was, too, the first man to put an end to the
use of liquor at logging bees. It was the prac-
tice at all loggings of that time to divide the
fallow off in sections, and for each gang engaged
in the work to try to get its section finished first.
The whiskey pail was always at hand to keep
the workers keyed up to the highest pitch. One
day on the Gunn farm, while a particularly

.154 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

keen race was on between the rival gangs,
a man shoved a log from his section to that of
the rival gang, and was caught at it. The blood
of all the gangs, hot with the race and still fur-
ther heated with the liquor, was at the boiling
point already and the attempted cheating started
a fight on the spot. Mr. Gunn, then in his prime,
jumped between the fighters, and holding each
at the end of a powerful arm shook both
into submission. Then, mounting on a log-heap,
he gave all the men a quiet talk, and declared
his intention of never again allowing liquor at a
logging on his place. He kept his word, and by
so doing helped not a little in the spread of tem-
perance reform over the whole neighbourhood.
On the Gunn farm there is a little "city of the
dead," that dates even farther back than does
that which lies under the shadow of the old stone
church. In this older place of burial lie repre-
sentatives of another people, who spoke another
language. It is the resting place of Indians who
had gone to the happy hunting grounds before
the white man came. The graves are located
along the banks of an old water-course, and are
shaded by the cedar, elm, and balsam, which line
one side of the driveway leading to the family
residence. A great balsam marks the head of
a grave in which rests a chief's daughter to
whom the call came in girlhood's prime. Many
years ago, before the Indians of the Lake Simcoe
reserve were converted to Christianity, mem-
bers of the tribe made regular pilgrimages to
the place for the purpose of engaging in pagan
rites in the presence of the dead. Later on,
when the homes of the white men began to dot

BY WAY OF YONGB STREET 155

the country the Indians ceased to visit the place.
It was at that time a low, swampy neighbour-
hood, and before it was cleared up there fre-
quently appeared before the gaze of alarmed
settlers a fitful phosphorescent glow dancing
over decayed logs. The belief was spread that it
was the spirits of departed red men looking for
the mourning relatives who came no more. But,
with the clearing of the land, the uneasy spirits
of the woods disappeared, and now the dead
lie silent and still while the night wind sighs
in the swaying tops of the evergreens above.
There they lie:

"Unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing

beside them;
Thousands of throbbing hearts where theirs

are at rest and forever,
Thousands of aching brains, wrhere theirs

have ceased from their labours,
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have

completed the journey."

Here and there over nearly the whole of
Ontario, the pioneers found traces of Indian
occupation before the coming of the white man,
Few localities had a richer store of reminders of
a passing race than the township of Nottawa-
saga. When the Mad River covered the present
site of Creemore and deer licks existed on the
Currie farm near that village, this township was
a favourite fishing and hunting ground for the
Indians. On the Melville farm on the fourth
concession, a plow one day struck a soft place

156 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

in the ground and search revealed a collection
of parched corn, and cakes burned hard as
bricks. On almost every farm in the township
tomahawks or Indian pipes have been plowed
up. Regular Indian burying grounds were
located on the town line of Nottawasaga and
Sunnidale, and on the second and fourth of the
former township. In these graveyards were
found masses of bones, together with kettles,
beads, and weapons. One of the strangest finds
was in the Indian graveyard on the second con-
cession of Nottawasaga, consisting of a number
of sabres, tied together, which apparently had
never been used. A pioneer took three of these
sabres to serve as a trap for deer that had been
feeding on his oat crop. He set the sabres point
upwards, covered with light brush as a screen,
at a place where the deer had been jumping
into the field. Next morning an animal was
found impaled, but unfortunately it was the best
horse on the farm. It is said that another of
these old sabres, which doubtless came from
France, served for years as guard for the portals
of an Orange lodge. It was surely a strange fate
which caused this sword, probably blessed by a
Jesuit priest for service in the hands of a sol-
dier of Catholic Prance, to become a prized pos-
session of a lodge devoted to the perpetuation
of the memory of King William.

BUILDING IN A HURRY

At the beginning of June, 1899, one of the
pioneers of the Islay settlement on the east side
of Lake Simcoe was still in the flesh in the per-

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 157

son of John Merry. At that time all the lots
between one and five on the seventh of Eldon,
save one, were in possession of direct descen-
dants of the men who had settled on them
sixty years before, at a time when the country
for miles around was solid bush. Of the toil
endured by the pioneers on the last stage of the
journey to their destined home in Eldon I was
told by Donald McArthur, a son of one of the
original settlers.

''From Toronto to Holland Landing teams
were employed in carrying the belongings of our
people," said Mr. McArthur. "But the people

CRADLE

themselves walked every step of the way, the
horses having all they could do to haul the
freight over the great hills and across hollows
where the mud was nearly knee deep. At every
hill, indeed, teams had to be doubled up. From
'The Landing* to Beaverton open boats were
used. It was after Beaverton was left behind
that the greatest toil was experienced. For
fifteen miles through the bush there was nothing
but an Indian trail, and over that distance our

158 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

people carried their bedding and other belong-
ings on their backs.

" Quick work was done, when the locations
on which our people proposed to make their
homes were finally reached. Rude shanties were
put up on one day and equally rude fireplaces
were constructed outside for cooking. Next day
stone fireplaces were built inside and the smoke
from these was allowed to escape through a hole
in the roof, no chimneys being yet in place. The
'chinking' of the log walls was not completed
until the approach of winter made this im-
perative.

''When the first grain crop was harvested,
the nearest place at which it could be ground
was the old 'Red Mill' at Holland Landing, and
the grain sent there had to be 'packed' as far
as Beaverton. The settlers generally went in
couples, each man carrying a bushel of wheat
on his back. On the return journey the carriers
depended for food on bread made on the way
from the flour they carried with them.

"Wolves were a great source of worry and
loss. One morning my mother turned our sheep
out of the pen at daybreak and a belated wolf
destroyed six of them before the flock could be
rounded up. The brutes even attacked the
cattle at times, but they made little by such
attacks when a number of cattle were together.
In these cases the cattle formed a circle with
cows and calves in the centre, the oxen with
lowered heads forming the outer ci rcle. Against
that defence wolves attacked in vain.

"The first Presbyterian minister in the sec-
tion was the Rev. Mr. McMurchy, and by him

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 159

most of the children were baptised. Later on
these same children formed new unions under
his benediction. The usual practice in connec-
tion with weddings was to have banns published
on three successive Sundays, and on the Wednes-
day following the last announcement the wed-
ding would take place. All weddings were real
community affairs. The women of the settle-
ment went the day before to bake and assist the
bride. On the evening following the ceremony
the fiddler mounted his bench, and from before
sunset until the sun rose again flying feet kept
time to the music. ' '

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT AND TOWNSHIP
MEETINGS

From James St. John, who was nearly ninety
years of age and still with intellect wholly
unimpaired when I interviewed him in the
township of Brock in 1900, information was
obtained concerning the annual township meet-
ings of the early days.

"When it came to the making of laws," began
Mr. St. John, "the general practice was for some
one to propose a rough outline of what was
desired. This was reduced to writing by a
magistrate present, who afterwards mounted
a wood-pile and read the formal document which
was then submitted for ratification by the assem-
bly. One of the first of the local laws in Brock
provided that fowl, which continued to trespass
after warning had been given to the owner,
might be shot by the party on whose land the
trespass occurred. When this measure was

160 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

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BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 161

being read for the approval of the meeting
someone asked what was to be done with the
carcasses of the fowl shot.

" 'Eat them,' I said from a side bench.

" 'Eat them,' repeated the magistrate as if
reading from the formal document.

"At once there was a rush for the wood-pile
on which the magistrate was standing, and the
wood, the reader, and the crowd were thrown
into one tumbled mass. But it was all done in
good nature, and was merely one of the ways in
which animal spirits expressed themselves at
these annual meetings."

Mr. St. John also told a story of an old-time
parliamentary election that reads, in some
respects, like a news item of U. F. O. activity
of the present time.

"We had," he said, "been electing lawyers
year after year and found that these hardly
noticed us after election day was over. In order
to devise means of changing all this we held a
meeting in our township and decided, by almost
unanimous vote, that we would elect a farmer
in the then pending election. Two candidates
were in the field, Hartman, a Reformer and far-
mer, and Scobie, a Conservative and lawyer. The
latter was a very clever talker and succeeded in
persuading all of those who had attended the
meeting, except myself, to go back on the
decision reached and to support him. Notwith-
standing the defection of Brock, however,
Hartman was elected, and he proved one of the
best representatives who ever sat for the
constituency.

"Polling in that election took place at New-

162 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

market and continued over two days. During
that time both candidates kept open house. No
strong liquor was supplied, but beer was as free
as water. Still, notwithstanding the abundance
of liquor and the excitement of the election, I
did not see a single fight during the contest."

Telling of an incident of another kind, Mr. St.
John said: kt Indians were numerous all over the
Lake Simcoe district, and in early spring eight
or ten camps were formed by these on my
father's farm while the squaws engaged in
basket-making. The Indians were all ardent
'Queen's Men' and would not hear a word
spoken derogatory of Victoria the Good, who had
then recently ascended the throne. One of the
settlers, McMaster by name, for a joke, made
some slighting remarks about royalty in the
presence of a group of these Indians, and they
threatened to kill him. Taking refuge in our
house, he got me to hide him under a pile of
straw in the sleigh and drive him past the
Indian camp to his home. When driving
past the camp an Indian jumped on the sleigh
for a ride and sat down on the straw, not
knowing McMaster was underneath. When
McMaster at last got out near his own door,
after the Indian had disappeared, he said
he had been almost smothered under the straw.
But he was cured; he never tried another joke
with the Indians."

When Mr. St. John entered Brock with his
father, in 1821, there were only three other set-
tlers in the township. Mr. St.. John was then
twelve years of age, and from that time until his
ninetieth year he worked almost continuously.

BY WAY OP YONGE STREET 163

Part of his labours consisted of chopping the
bush from three hundred acres with his
own hands.

Speaking of the early struggles, Mr. St. John
continued: "We worked hard, and for limited
rewards, but never suffered want. My first crop
of fall wheat had just nicely headed out when
a foot of snow fell. Fortunately there was no
frost and the wheat afterwards yielded an aver-
age of forty bushels per acre. I cut that crop
with a reaping-hook, threshed it with a flail,
cleaned the grain with a borrowed fanning-mill,
and hauled it to Stouffville with oxen. And
what do you think I got for the grain on
delivery? Three York shillings a bushel, with
half of that in store pay, and I had to wait three
months for the 'cash' half of it!

'The very next year, however, the price of
wheat went to two dollars and a half per bushel.
Afterwards it sagged to between one and two
dollars and then, when the Russian War came,
it rose above two dollars and a half. One
winter, when wheat was quoted at about a dollar
a bushel, I arranged to market the twelve hun-
dred bushels that I held from the previous
season's crop. After hauling out one load one
of my horses broke a leg while playing in the
yard and I was not able to resume marketing
before the following June. The loss of the horse,
in the end, proved a most fortunate accident as,
when I did sell my wheat, the price was one
dollar and eighty-five cents.

"These occasional high prices, and the uncer-
tainty of them, were really a most unfortunate
thing for the country. Farmers assumed

164

obligations in order to buy more land for wheat
growing, and this sent land prices up to spec-
ulative levels. I could have sold our farm then
for one hundred dollars an acre, whereas, after
prices dropped, I could hardly have secured sixty
dollars, although in the meantime the farm had
been greatly improved. The worst effects, how-
ever, were felt by merchants, many of whom
went mad in grain speculation. One of the
heaviest plungers was a man named Laing, in
Whitby. I have seen him come from the bank
with a stack of bills as big as a hand satchel,
and this would not last him over three hours
while his buying ventures were at their height.
When wheat dropped to seventy-five cents, he
failed and many failed with him.

"In the period I speak of (this was before rail-
ways were built in Ontario, Victoria, and Peter-
boro Counties) Whitby was one of the greatest
grain markets in the country. Wheat from all
around the east side of Lake Simcoe was teamed
there. The work of teaming was facilitated by
the improvement of the road from Brechin to
Manchester with the county's share of the Clergy
Reserve Fund, and the building of the plank
toll road from Manchester to Whitby. When
that plank road was at its best a team could
haul from one hundred to one hundred and forty
bushels of wheat at a load, but the hard surface
proved as injurious to the feet and legs of
horses as concrete pavement does now. At that
time as many as fifty teams might be seen in a
string along the old Centre Road; at Manchester
fully two hundred teams were assembled at one
time; and at Whitby sleighs extended for a mile

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET

165

from the harbour front up into the town. Many a
good horse was fatally chilled while waiting on
the ice for the unloading of the grain hauled.

"It was the opening of the main line of the
Grand Trunk, combined with the existence of
an excellent harbour, that made Whitby in the
'fifties and 'sixties the market for all the
country tapped by roads leading to the north. I
well remember the day when the line was opened.
It seemed as if the whole surrounding country
emptied itself into Whitby on that occasion.

SHEARING SHEEP

Every hotel — and there were then six in the
town and three at the harbour — was filled to
overflowing, and the streets were lined with
empty wagons and buggies whose owners were
off to Toronto on the excursion of their lives.

"At a still earlier date than this, when the
country was first being settled, wolves were
numerous in the ravines about Sunderland. One
day I heard some of these after our sheep.

166 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Without waiting to get my gun I rushed to the
defence of the flock and jumped on the back of
a wolf I found attacking a fine ewe. The brute
was so surprised that he ran for the bush with-
out waiting to see what had dropped on him.
The ewe was somewhat mauled, but I doctored
her with turpentine and not many days after-
wards she gave birth to a pair of fine lambs.
After I had released this ewe from the wolf, I
went at a second of the marauders, which was
attacking another of the flock, and beat him off
with a fence rail. I was a little too late in this
case and the second sheep died of her injuries."

Nor were animals the only victims to be
attacked by wolves. R. L. Huggard, when
living in Whitby, told me that James Lytle was
once treed by wolves near Kendal in Durham
County. " After climbing the tree," said Mr.
Huggard, "Mr. Lytle broke branches and, using
these as clubs, tried to drive the wolves away,
but when the animals snapped at his feet he was
glad to climb back to safety and remain on his
perch until the besiegers disappeared with day-
break. When at last Lytle, almost frozen, did
get down he found the snow around the base of
the tree packed as hard as a sleigh track.

"More fortunate was a man named Morrison
who lived near Uxbridge in the early days.
This Morrison was a famous fiddler and his ser-
vices were in great demand at the winter
dances. Frequently, after the dancers had gone
he tramped home alone. One winter night, as
he was trudging along with his fiddle tucked
under his arm, he was surprised by a pack of
wolves. A roofless old shack was near at hand,

BY WAY OF YONGE STREET

167

and up to the peak of the rafters scrambled
Morrison. Whether from a sense of humour or
not I do not know, but, as the <-old increased,
Morrison bethought himself of playing a tune
for the howling pack below. So he took his fid-
dle from his case and struck up a lively tune,
when, to his utter astonishment away scampered
the brutes at topmost speed into the bush. He
had many a laugh afterwards as he thought of
himself on that cold still night beneath the
bright winter stars fid-
dling away from his
lofty perch. Uncon-
sciously he had stum-
bled upon what has
become a well estab-
lished fact that wolves
are terrified by the
strains of a violin. He
never wanted for pro-
tection against wolves
when on his lonely night
tramps after that."

It may very well be
added here, in connec-
tion with reference to
township meetings, that
Colborne was one of the
first townships to be municipally organized in
the Huron Tract, convenience of access to the
port of Goderich having facilitated early settle-
ment there. In the last June of the past cen-
tury, thanks to the courtesy of Henry Morris,
of Loyal, I had the privilege of going over the
first records of Colborne 's municipal govern-

A FIDDLER'S PLIGHT

168

inent. These records began with the fourth of
January, 1836, whn the pioneers of the town-
ship met at the Crown and Anchor Hotel kept
by the father of Mr. Morris in the then village
of Gairbraid, to start the municipal machine.
The meeting was held in accordance with "the
terms of Statute V, William IV, Chapter 8."
Under the terms of that statute, the annual
township meeting held at the beginning of the
year not only elected commissioners, as the
township councillors were then called, but the
several township officers, from clerk to fence-
viewers, as well.

Election troubles of a kind for which Huron
has since been famous began early in the
county's history. At this first township meeting
in Colborne, J. C. Tims and John McClean were
candidates for the clerkship, and Daniel Lizars,
who was in the chair, declared the latter elected.
Thereupon three of the votes cast in this elec-
tion were objected to and a scrutiny called for,
the final result being that McClean was declared
to have a majority of two. Even this did not
end the matter, because later on proceedings
were taken against one of those present for
having voted " contrary to the terms of the
statute in that case made and provided," and in
due course a tea-pot belonging to the offender
was seized to satisfy the law's demands, the
said tea-pot being held until one of the com-
missioners put up security for the fine imposed.
Troubles over the clerkship, having once begun,
continued intermittently for a couple of years.
McClean resigned the day after the meeting at
which he had been elected, and the township

169

commissioners appointed his rival Tims to fill
the vacancy. On October 25th following, Tims
resigned in turn, and James Forrest London
was appointed. London served until April 25th
following, and then he, too, resigned, and A. R.
Christie was made clerk.

The annual township meeting of the 'thirties
of the last century did more than elect a local
government and officials. It also made laws for
the governance of the municipality. At the
first township meeting for Colborne, one of the
laws passed declared that "bulls and stallions
shall not be free commoners," and that "stray
dogs found at large should be liable to be
impounded." A "legal fence" was defined as
one six and a half feet high with not more
than four inches space between the rails for the
first two feet, and that for the next two feet the
space should not be above five inches. At the
third annual meeting, held in 1838, one of
the laws passed in public meeting assembled
declared that cattle of "the habit and repute
of being breachy" should not be permitted to
run at large.

Shortly after the township government was
organized, a commissioner complained of the
blocking of certain roads through trees having
fallen across the same. One of the cases of
which complaint was made was that wherein a
"large maple" had fallen from lot one, con-
cession three. Two other complaints were also
lodged concerning trees which had fallen from
lands belonging to the Canada Company. In
all cases complained of the owners of the land
were called upon to remove the obstructions.

170 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

The Canada Company, through Thomas
Mercer Jones, claimed non-liability. The statute
of the day, it appears, attached liability only to
" enclosed lands," and as the Canada Company's
lands were not " enclosed," and, in fact, had no
improvements on them, exemption was claimed.
Thus the actual settler, who was living on and
making more valuable the hundred acres held
by him, was liable for trees falling from his
place blocking the highway. A great corpor-
ation, that held thousands of acres which were
being made more valuable by the labour of
others, claimed exemption from the same liabil-
ity because its property was not enclosed. It is
not surprising that the Canada Company was
even more unpopular in the early days of
Western Ontario than some other corporations
operating have been since then.

The Crown and Anchor Hotel in which Col-
borne 's first municipal government was formed
disappeared long since. The village of Gairbraid
itself, like many other hamlets of pioneer times,
has also disappeared, and for about half a cen-
tury a one-time scene of bustling activity has
been part of a plowed field.

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO
THE SUMMERLESS YEAR

Some fragmentary references have already
been made to "The Summerless Year" of 1816.
But the real story of that season of want and
nightmare was related to me by Benjamin D.
Waldbrook, whom I interviewed near Oakville
in the first year of the present century. Mr.
Waldbrook 's father came to Canada in 1817,
when memories of the event were still fresh, and
Ids own recollections went back to the beginning
of the third decade of the last century.

"The spring of 1816," Mr. Waldbrook said,
"opened with as fair prospects as have ever
appeared at the same season since. But the
sunshine of the year's morn was followed by a
long night of black despair. Snow commenced
falling in June, and until spring came again the
whole country was continuously covered by a
wintry blanket. Practically nothing was gath-
ered in the way of a crop. Everything rotted
in the ground. There was no flour, there were
no vegetables; people lived for twelve months
on fish and meat — venison, porcupine, and
ground-hog being varied with the thin meat of
cattle slaughtered because there was no
vegetation to sustain them. Hay was sent from
Ireland to save the stock of the starving people
of Quebec; and some brought here sold for forty-

171

172

five dollars per ton. Even when father came in
the following year, flour was seventy dollars per
barrel at Quebec, potatoes were a penny a pound,
and the country was full of stories of the horrors
endured during the winter of a year's duration.

" Happily the year 1817 was as prolific as the
year before had been barren. Happily, too,
there was a considerable migration in 1817 from
Nova Scotia, which had escaped an affliction
that appears to have been confined to Ontario,
Quebec, and the Eastern States. The new-
comers from Nova Scotia brought with them
potatoes, that provided seed not only for them-
selves but for neighbours in Ontario who were
without seed. These potatoes had a blue point
and our Ontario people gave them the name of
' blue-noses/ From the potatoes the name
passed to Nova Scotians themselves. I am told
that the people of Nova Scotia do not like the
title. They should be proud of it. The name
recalls the time when help from that province
by the sea proved the salvation of sorely
stricken Ontario.

"Even I have been witness of afflictions little
less grievous than those of the 'summerless
year,' continued Mr. Waldbrook. "About
1833, army worms came in countless millions.
They literally covered the ground and trees were
left bare of foliage as in mid-winter. At the
doors of houses they swarmed like bees at the
entrance to a hive.

"About the same time a deluge of frogs fell
upon the land. In the blazing heat of noonday
sun these rotted and filled the air with poison-
ous vapors. For a time this province was

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 173

cursed with a West Indian climate; cholera
developed, and people died by hundreds.

"Some ten years before this, and prior to the
time covered by my recollection, I have been
told that a tornado swept over a section half a
mile wide about Milton. The tornado was pre-
ceded by a roar like that produced by an
unbroken roll of thunder and the earth itself
seemed to quiver as with a convulsion. Cattle,
warned by instinct, rushed from the woods to
clearings and crouched close to the ground. The
storm broke with an indescribable fury; logs
were whirled from the ground like straws and in
a moment the air was filled with flying debris
and dust. A neighbour, Kennedy by name, had
three hundred bushels of ashes in a bin ready
to haul to an ashery. Ashes and bin wholly
disappeared together and went off in the
common wreckage.

"There was one humorous episode during the
storm, which narrowly escaped being a tragedy.
A young woman, named Eliza Harrison, was
hanging out a washing as the storm broke. The
next thing her mother saw was Eliza and the
line of clothes whirling in the air above the
tree-tops amid a cloud of branches and dust.
Strange to say the girl landed in a field several
hundred yards away, very little hurt. Eliza was
the pioneer in aerial navigation in America."

Mr. Waldbrook told a couple of bear stories
typical of the times. " In 1829, "he said, ' ' when
ray father was passing along King Street,
Toronto, a bear came out of the woods north of
where St. James' Cathedral now stands. Near
Weston a man named Elliott was attacked by

174 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

another bear, and in the struggle Elliott choked
the bear to death by forcing his fist down the
brute 's throat. Elliott 's arm was so badly lacer-
ated that it had to be amputated, Dr. Widmer,
whose name was honourably connected with the
early hospital history of Toronto, performing the
operation."

In Mr. Waldbrook's youth a large part of
Halton was covered with magnificent white oak
and the marketing of this timber gave the
pioneers of the county their first start. The
timber was cut into ten and five foot lengths and
split with beetles and wedges into slabs vary-
ing from two to five inches in thickness. In
spring the slabs were floated down the river
to Oakville and shipped thence to England,
where they were again split with saws in readi-
ness to be sent to the West Indies to make
hogsheads for the sugar trade. " Robert Sul-
livan," said Mr. Waldbrook, "was one of the
chief operators in the Halton woods. He was
given the name of 'White Oak Sullivan' and
in turn he gave Oakville its name.

" While men were piloting the staves down
the stream, they spent the night in shanties by
the side of the river, and every night was a
carouse. During one such carouse a member
of the party was seen to be sitting quietly,
taking no part in the proceedings. Next morn-
ing when the other men, even yet partially
stupefied by liquor, got up, the silent one was
still there, but little notice was taken of him.
When, however, the men observed that he did
not follow them down to the bank, they went
back and found him stone dead. It was supposed

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 175

that a blow given during the night's carousal
had killed him, but the body was quietly buried
and there was no inquiry.

" Another tragedy was connected with a
survey party. A stranger joined the party one
day, and next evening when the cook was
cutting wood to prepare supper the axe glanced
and sheared the stranger's head clear from his
body. As no one knew anything about the man,
the body was buried in the woods and thus the
incident closed.

"Another tragedy of early days in Halton was
connected with a one-time thriving village' of
which nothing remains to-day. The village was
located where Dundas Road crosses the six-
teenth. At one time the village contained a
distillery, brewery, saw-mill, store, and tannery.
The decline of the place began when the prin-
cipal owner, a man named Chalmers, while under
the influence of liquor, signed a cheque for ten
thousand dollars, and, in remorse for his act,
committed suicide.

"Oakville was an Indian reserve until 1827.
Although the place got its start from the stave
trade, the boom came when the Russian war
raised the price of wheat. Farmers from as far
off as Garafraxa brought their grain here then,
and I have seen fifty or sixty teams waiting
at one time to unload.

" During that period new barns were erected
everywhere, and, as saw-mills would not pay
over twenty-five cents for the two first logs
from a pine tree, the best of timber went into
these. Barn-raisings were community events
and whiskey was in abundant supply. I have

176

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

seen half-tipsy men swarming all over the skel-
eton structures, but never saw a serious accident.
At these raisings, the barns were christened like
a ship at a launching, but whiskey instead of
wine was used at the ceremony. Once, at a
raising near Ancaster, I saw a man, bottle in
hand, run up the peak where two rafters joined.
There, balancing on one foot, he sang out :

" It is a good framing
And shall get a good naming.
What shall the naming bet"

BAKN-HA1SING BEE
' ' Barn-raisings were community events. ' '

"When the prearranged name was shouted
back the man on the rafters so declared it as
he cast the bottle to the ground. Was the
bottle broken? No, indeed! As it contained the
best liquor supplied at the raising, care was
taken to see that it fell on soft ground, and the
moment it fell it was surrounded by a crowd of

men, still thirsty despite the liberal libations
already supplied."

Mr. Waldbrook, in dealing with conditions
existing prior to 1837 said: "In our section
people paid from a dollar and a half per quarter
to six dollars per year, for each child sent to
school. Their ordinary land tax amounted to
twelve dollars per year in addition to this. That
does not seem a great deal to-day, but it was
a very heavy burden for men, starting on bush
farms, who sold their wheat for three York shil-
lings a bushel and dressed beef at a dollar and a
half per hundred-weight. What made the situa-
tion more irksome still was the fact that the Can-
ada Company was holding unimproved lands, on
which no taxes at all were paid, at eight to
twelve dollars per acre. When Martin Switzer
of Churchville went to Toronto to pay his taxes
to Treasurer Powell of the Home District, he
entered complaint against these conditions.
He figured up the tax paid in his own town-
ship and said that he could not see what
the people were getting in return, since they
were left without bridges even, save such as
they built for themselves.

" 'I think' said Switzer, 'some of this money
must be misappropriated in Toronto/

" 'Look here, my man,' Powell insolently
responded, 'your business is to pay taxes. It
is for the gentlemen here in Toronto to say how
they shall be spent, and if I hear any more such
seditious language from you I shall have you
put in York jail.'

Switzer spread the story on his return home,
and anger, savage enough before, was fanned

178 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

into a white heat. It is no wonder that the
people rose in arms. They would have been less
than men if they had tamely submitted to the
insolence and incompetence of office to which
they were being daily subjected.

Mr. Waldbrook told me that he knew the
names of those who had sheltered Mackenzie in
his flight through Halton after the affair of
Montgomery's Tavern, and that he even knew
the woman who gave the leader her dress for
disguise. But, despite my gentle pressing near-
ly seventy years after the event, a request for
names was refused.

A CHINGACOUSY VILLAGE

Few men witnessed more varying stages of
the pioneer period than did Abraliam Campbell,
whom I met at lot twenty-eight on the first
concession of Chingacousy in July, 1899. Mr.
Campbell spent his life on the farm on which he
was born when Chingacous.y was the farthest
settlement north of the lake. As a child and
youth he saw other pioneers pass his door on
their way to the virgin forests of Dufferin, Grey,
and Bruce. He was witness of the annual
summer pilgrimage of the men from the newer
lands of the north to the older settlements of
the south in search of employment in which they
might earn bread for the winter. As the forests
of the northland were pushed back before the
attack of the axe-men, he viewed the winter
procession of teams by which the grain of the
north country was hauled toward lake ports.
To all this Mr. Campbell was able to add what

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 179

his father had told him of days prior to the
period covered by his own recollection, the
period when even the Niagara district was
young. His father as a youth was at Queens-
ton Heights, Stoney Creek, and Lundy's Lane,
and one of the most prized possessions of the
Campbell homestead, when I was there in 1899,
was an iron pot, eighteen inches in diameter,
captured from the American forces at Stoney
Creek, and still doing duty in the Campbell
homestead over eighty years later.

Mr. Campbell's father and six brothers took
up one thousand acres in Chingacousy about
1820, after having journeyed from the old
family home in Lincoln County by an ox-team.
From Cooksville to their locations, the way led
over a road made through the bush with their
own axes. A quarter of a century later
Campbell's Cross, on the highway connecting
north and south, was a scene of bustling life.

" There was a tavern there containing
eighteen rooms," said Mr. Campbell, "and in
those rooms I have known twenty or thirty
people to be accommodated over night. As late
as two o'clock in the morning I have seen the
bar-room so full of people that one could not
get near the bar itself. There were three stores
in the village at that time, and they were all
busy places. Whence did the business come?
Largely from the north country, which by that
time had begun to produce a surplus. I have
seen as many as one hundred teams arrive with
grain in a single day. Part of the grain was
bought by local merchants and teamed by them
to Port Credit for shipment by water. Some of

180 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

the farmers hauled their own grain all the way
to the lake port.

" Teaming this grain was real labour. Between
Chingacousy and the north, hauling was possible
only in winter, and even then twenty-five to
thirty bushels made a load. In coming down
the Caledon mountain it was necessary to put
a drag on the sleighs. Those who did their own
teaming to Toronto or Port Credit frequently
used ox-teams and sleighs to Campbell's Cross
and then borrowed wagons for the journey to
Toronto. On some of these journeys the snow
was up to the backs of the oxen when north of
the Caledon mountain, while south of our place
the animals wallowed to their bellies in slush
and mud. Some of these northern farmers came
from as far back as Owen Sound with grass seed,
venison, and pork for sale, the round trip
occupying well over a week. At times the
nights were spent in the bush while sleet or
rain beat in through the partial covering
afforded by the forest. But the people were
happy with it all. Return cargoes usually con-
sisted of groceries and a half -barrel of whiskey,
and as long as the latter kept the interior warm,
exterior cold did not matter much to the hardy
men of that day.

"At the period covered by my earliest recol-
lection bears and wolves were common in
Chingacousy. I have more than once seen cows
come home with flanks and udders so badly
torn that the animals had to be killed. During
the 'thirties, 'forties, and 'fifties, the father of
Kenneth Chisholm, who for years represented
Peel in the Legislature, made staves from the

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 181

oaks that theii covered a good deal of the
township. The staves were hauled to the
Credit by oxen, floated down the stream to the
Port, and thence shipped to England. About
I860, while I was assisting in removing an old
oak stump, we unearthed a tool that had been
used in splitting staves.

"One of my earliest election recollections is
connected with the contest in which Colonel
Ed. Thompson defeated William Lyon Mac-
kenzie in the year before the Rebellion. That
was the most exciting electoral battle we ever
had. The electors of Caledon, Chingacousy, and
Toronto townships all went to Streetsville to
vote. The polls remained open for a week or
two and for most of that time my father was
engaged in hauling Tories to the voting place.
On the last day of polling five or six teams were
massed and, headed by bagpipes, took the last
of the voters to the poll.

"When the Rebellion came, it was real civil
war, one neighbour watching another. From the
shelter of a hedge father and I saw a dozen
of Mackenzie's supporters passing in twos at
night. The Government's supporters marched
in daylight. There were no actual conflicts in
this neighbourhood between the rival factions,
but fighting was narrowly averted on some occa-
sions. Captain Sinclair had a party of Macken-
zie's partisans in his home at Cheltenham, when
they were surprised and taken prisoners by a
company under command of my father. Most of
the arms of Sinclair's men were stacked in the
middle of the room, and one of my brothers
rushed in and grabbed these before the

182 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

other party knew what was happening. Not-
withstanding the surprise and loss of part of
the arms, it required a good deal of persuasion
to induce those who still retained weapons to
give them up."

The excitement attendant upon Mackenzie's
last contest before the Rebellion was paralleled
by an election that took place in Peel about
1848. In this election George Wright and
Colonel William Thompson split the Tory vote
and Honourable Joseph Morrison (afterwards
appointed a judge) slipped in between them.
Bars were not closed on polling day then and
whiskey flowed as freely as the waters of the
Credit. Single fights occurred every few min-
utes while the battle at the polls was on. Some-
times these single fights developed into con-
flicts between factions, and when this happened
men quit using their fists and started for the
most convenient bush to cut clubs. One of the
most serious of these rows took place at Caledon
just before the polls closed. James Thompson
was deputy returning officer and Mr. Campbell
was poll clerk. When the place got too hot for
the officials, they grabbed the poll books (it was
open voting then) and bolted. A howling mob
followed them for half a mile, but the deputy
and poll clerk at length found refuge in Philip
Chamber's tavern at lot nine, concession one,
Caledon, and there they declared the poll duly
and legally closed.

Robert W. Brock, whom I met at Belfountain
about the same time that 1 had the interview
with Mr. Campbell, gave some further inform-
ation of early days in Peel and Dufferin.

"At the time of my earliest recollections," Mr.
Brock said, "the Centre Road had displaced the
first concession of Chingacousy as the leading
highway to the north. In the late 'sixties, I
have seen that road black with teams, and traffic
going on day and night. This continued until
the old narrow gauge T. GK & B. was built to
Owen Sound and markets were opened at
Orangeville, Shelburne, and Dimdalk. Then the
glory of Churchville and Streetsville began
to wane.

"Many years before the opening of the rail-
way, a man named Frank had a grist-mill at
Belfountain and people from as far north as
Meaford and Owen Sound brought their grists
to the mill on jumpers or home-made sleighs
hauled by oxen. Much of the way was over
a blazed trail and the journey could be made
only in summer, the roads being impassable in
winter. My wife's brother, Samuel Eagle, was
then living near Bayview, about nine miles from
Meaford. He frequently walked to his father's
place at Belfountain, spending three or four
days on the road and sleeping at night in pine
thickets with a fire at his feet to frighten away
wild animals. From Belfountain his father
drove him to Toronto to purchase groceries, and
these my brother packed on his back from
Belfountain to Bayview. Eagle's nearest neigh-
bour at that time was three and a half miles
and the next seven miles distant.

"After a time one of the Bayview settlers
secured a coffee-mill and neighbours came from
miles around to use this in grinding their wheat.
That was tedious work. I have heard Eagle

184 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

say he would sooner chop all day in the bush
than grind half a bushel of wheat in the old
coffee-mill. In the course of time Eagle pur-
chased an ox, fitted it with Dutch harness, and
used this to haul his grists to Belfountain. At
last an enterprising man arranged to erect a
mill at Bayview, and the whole neighbourhood
turned out to assist in the erection. Despite my
brother-in-law's early poverty, he left an estate
of forty-thousand dollars when he died at eighty.
And notwithstanding his early hardships, his
doctor said that he would have lived for a cen-
tury had death not come as the result of
an accident."

A third story was supplied by Peter Spiers,
of Mayfield, with Peter's maternal grandfather,
John Bleakley, as the central figure in the tale.
Mr. Bleakley was with Sir John Moore at
Corunna, and with Wellington at Salamanca.
Like a number of other old Peninsular and
Waterloo veterans, Bleakley came to Canada
when his fighting days were over, and he was
one of the first settlers in Chingacousy, locating
on lot seven on the fifth concession.

"When my grandfather settled here," Mr.
Spiers said, "it was a common thing for settlers
to get lost in the bush, and to guide the lost ones
in finding their way out of the forest, my grand-
father was often asked to sound a call on the
trumpet he had carried with the Royal Artillery
in Spain. At a later date he used his trumpet
for another purpose. When taking a load of
chickens, butter, and garden truck to Toronto he
would carry his trumpet along, and with this he
would sound the i assemble' on nearing the old

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 185

fort where a British garrison was then main-
tained. The soldiers, thinking that it was their
own trumpeter, would rush to the parade ground.
Catching sight of the wagon they would shout :
'Oh, it is our old friend Jack!' and the load of
provisions was soon disposed of to them."

WHEN THE FROST CAME

' ' And then the frost came. ' ' To understand
even partially the meaning conveyed in these
words one must have a clear mental picture of
the surroundings when the calamity occurred.

The time spoken of was three-quarters of a
century ago. A young couple — James Buchanan
and his wife — had established themselves on the
fringe of the swamp which then extended up
through Amaranth and Luther. Their home
was a cabin in the woods. It was all in one
apartment, barely as large as the dining-room in
some of the houses you may find in the same sec-
tion to-day. The walls were of logs, with the
bark still on, and the spaces between the logs
were partly filled with moss. The roof was
made of basswood logs split in half. The floors
were of split cedar. During the winter the snow
lay in heaps here and there over the floor
and even on the bed after a night's storm.

In the spring, after a winter spent in chopping
out a clearing, the husband had gone down to
"the front/' around Brampton or Cooksville, to
earn money by working for farmers whose hold-
ings were fairly well cleared, leaving the wife
at home to plant and hoe the potatoes and see
that cattle were kept out of the little patch of

186 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

wheat growing amid the blackened stumps of
the previous year's clearing. The grain had
almost reached the ripening stage; there was
every promise of an abundant supply of bread
at least for another year—

"And then the frost came."

What that meant only those who have been
through the experience know. The wheat could
not be sold; it was useless for bread, and there
were no hogs available to turn it into bacon.
The bears would have destroyed the pigs if any
had been there.

"Did that occur in more than one season?"

The question was put to Mrs. Buchanan.

"In more than one year? The same thing
went on for years, and years, and years," the
voice ending almost in a wail as memories of the
bitter days came back in a flood.

"Not only was our own wheat ruined," said
Mr. Buchanan, as he took up the thread of the
story, "but the calamity extended over a wide
neighbourhood. I have paid — from money
earned by toiling in the fields of Peel — two dol-
lars a bushel for wheat which, when ground,
would not make bread that was fit to eat."

"And when we had bread we had nothing else
in the way of food," continued his wife. "For
a whole year the first settlers lived on bread
without butter, and tea without milk or sugar.
We had cows, but, when I was left alone, they
wandered off in the bush and went dry. Hens we
brought in again and again, but the foxes took
them before we got any eggs.

"It was not so much the deprivation that hurt
as the shame of our poverty when strangers came

our way. One day, during the time conditions
were such as I have described, I was at the wash-
tub when three men, who were hunting, called.
One of them said that if they had dinner they
could go on hunting until night. I thought it was
a pretty broad hint, but I kept on washing and
never let on, as I was ashamed to ask them to
share such fare as we could offer. Then they
came into the house, and once again said that if
they had anything to eat with them they would
not go back. But I said nothing, and at last they
went away. I was sorry then that I had not
offered them such as we had to give, but at the
time I simply could not do it for shame's sake."
Then Mrs. Buchanan proceeded to tell of the
conditions under which they first moved to their
forest farm in Amaranth. Their old home was
down in Lanark. The last part of their journey,
from Cooksville to Amaranth, was made by stage
to Orangeville, and from Orangeville to their
new home, a distance of ten miles, on foot.
Orangeville was then a mere opening in the
woods. There were two little stores, ten feet
wide by eighteen feet deep, and two taverns very
little larger. From Orangeville to the location
selected was bush all the way, and Mrs.
Buchanan had to remain with a brother close a1
hand. Mr. Buchanan felled the trees out of which
the cabin was built. Even the floor and the door,
made of split cedar, were fashioned with an axe,
and, when Mrs. Buchanan joined her husband on
the" twenty-first of December, there was two feet
of snow on the ground. There the first winter
was spent, the husband toiling during the day
felling trees, and in the evening husband and

188 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

wife sat together with nothing but the open fire-
place to give light.

''When we came in," said she, "we brought
webs of flannel and fulled cloth with us, and from
these I made the clothes we wore. I took raw
wool, carded it, spun it and made mitts and sold
them, making dollars and dollars in this way. I
plaited straw hats and sold them, too. When 1
wanted groceries I had to walk to Orangeville
for them. Many and many a time have I walked
that ten miles and back, leaving at nine in the
morning and returning at three or four in the
afternoon, without anything to eat in the inter-
val. Even when we got better off, and had cows
and oxen, things were hard enough. For butter,
taken to Orangeville with an ox-team, we never
got more than a York shilling hi the early days.

"Fortunately there was little sickness then,
and for such as occurred simple remedies
sufficed. Catnip and tansy tea were available
in every cabin, and for boils we had salve made
from the ever-ready balm of Gilead. The great-
est hardship was in the lack of schools and
churches. For years we were wholly without
schools, and church services, held at infrequent
intervals, took place in the homes of settlers.
Yet with all the periods of loneliness and all the
scanty fare of the early days, I cannot say we
were unhappy. There were compensations for
the hardships. We were young, hope remained
even amid the disheartening effects due to
untimely frosts, and we were borne up by the
fact that we were building a home."

The reward has come; homes have been
created; killing frosts are no more; fruitful

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 189

fields are seen where forests were. There are
schools, roads, churches, and all other improve-
ments incident to civilization. But do those who
have come into the inheritance fully appreciate

GOING TO MARKET

RETURN FROM MARKET

' ' Many and many a time have I walked that ten miles and back,
leaving at nine in the morning and returning at three or four in
the afternoon, without anything to eat in the interval."

the patient toil and determined heroism by
which that heritage was won? Do they realize
by what privations and suffering the found-
ations of Old Ontario were laid?

190 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

PUSHING THE WAGON UPHILL

"It really seemed when we settled down here
in a hole in the bush, as if we could never make
a home of it, roads could never be built, and we
could never experience here even the measure
of comfort enjoyed in England."

The speaker was the maternal ancestor of the
Tuckers of Wellington County and the time
July, 1899. It was no wonder that there was
discouragement in the beginning. When the
Tuckers moved into Wellington the townships
of Peel, Luther, and Maryborough were solid
bush. Their journey thence had included boat
from Toronto to Hamilton, the Brock Road from
there to Guelph, and through unbroken bush
from Elora to Bosworth. Brock Road itself
was but a mud highway, and when the team
hauling the Tucker belongings stuck on a hill-
side, neighbours had to be called on to assist in
pushing the wagon to the top. A wagon was
used as far as Elora, but after that a jumper
was all that could be hauled through the bush.
The Tuckers' first crop was harvested with a
sickle. At the beginning of the life on the bush
farm, it cost a dollar a barrel to have flour hauled
from Elora to Bosworth.

Equally toilsome were the experiences of the
Donaldsons at Reading on the borders of
Dufferin and Wellington Counties. When this
family moved in about the middle of last cen-
tury, there was only an odd clearing between
Reading and Ballinafad, and Oakville, the near-
est real market, was two days distant. Some

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 191

villages between Reading and Oakville were,
however, more prosperous then than now. Bal-
linafad had two hotels and a blacksmith shop;
Hornby two hotels, two stores, and a smithy;
and Oakville, where wheat from the north was
loaded on schooners, was a rival of Toronto
itself as a shipping port.

THE SCOTCH BLOCK

"Old Boston Church," in the Scotch Block
of Esquesing, may be considered the cradle of
Canadian liberty. At a time when England was
in the grip of the reactionary forces developed
during the Napoleonic wars, when the Family
Compact ruled in Canada as barons of the old
world ruled in the Middle Ages, when even in
the young republic to the south something of
the old spirit of aristocracy still survived, the
most advanced principles of the democrac}^ of
to-day were written into the deed of gift convey-
ing the site for the church that is the Faneuil
Hall of Canada. The deed in question was
granted by John Stewart, the father of The
Scotch Block. It was made in favour of "The
United Presbyterian Church, formerly the
Missionary Synod of Canada, in connection with
the United Secession Church of Scotland." The
three first trustees under the deed of gift were
William Michie, James Hume, and Peter
McPherson. The instrument under which they
were appointed provided, however, — and here
the spirit of democracy begins to reveal itself,—
that the trustees should hold office only for a
specified time and that on the expiration of the

192 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

period the congregation should be free either to
re-elect the retiring officials or to choose others
in their stead. The only restriction placed on
the choice of trustees was that such officers
-should be members, — " members" being defined
as those "who had been admitted to the Lord's
table and were on the communion rolls of the
church." The deed went further than making
provision for periodical elections; it provided
also that any trustee could be deposed before
the expiration of his term, at a meeting called
for the purpose and on the majority voting yea.
There you have, written in a church deed a
century old, the principle set forth in the recall
plank in the U.F.O. platform of to-day; a feature
still considered radical by present day political
organizations.

Nor did the declaration of the right of the
people to govern themselves end even here. The
grant specifically stated that the congregation
might go so far as to change the form of wor-
ship in the church on a two-thirds majority
calling for such change.

The spirit written into that deed, the clear
enunciation of the principle of government by
the people for the people, seems to have entered
into the minds and hearts of the whole com-
munity. Certain it is, at least, that nowhere
in the Upper Canada of that day did the cham-
pions of responsible government receive stouter
support than in The Scotch Block; and, when
hope of securing redress by agitation seemed
at an end, The Block contributed its quota to
those who stood ready with Lyou Mackenzie to
give the final proof of fidelity to a cause held

WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO 193

more important than life itself. It is not sur-
prising that a son of the man who gave the site
for "Old Boston'' was among the prisoners
confined in Fort William Henry after the col-
lapse of the rising of 'thirty-seven. Neither is
it surprising to learn that he was one of a num-
ber who dug their way out through a wall four
and a half feet in thickness and, after securing
a boat, made their way across the St. Lawrence
to American territory.

For this story of The Scotch Block I had to
depend, in the main, on the instrument convey-
ing the site on which Boston Church stands and
on the records carved in moss-grown headstones
surrounding the sacred edifice. This is because
the story was not written until 1918, a century
after the formation of the settlement, and by
that time even some of those of the third gen-
eration were in the "sear, the yellow leaf."
But the parchment, yellow with age, and the
lettering carved on granite or marble slabs are
sufficient of themselves to enable one to form
a mental picture of the men and women who
blazed the trail into Esquesing. In every sen-
tence written on the parchment there breathes
the spirit of freedom first inhaled amid Scottish
hills. Every headstone beneath the shelter of
the church bears testimony to that heart-felt
affection, ceasing only when life itself ceased,
for the land of brown heath and shaggy wood
beyond the sea.

Over the grave of John Stewart is recorded
the fact that the father of The Block was born
in Perth and was descended from the Stewarts
of Drumcharry, Rossmount, and Duntaulich,

194 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

that he migrated to Canada in 1817, and that he
died in 1854.

Other stones mark the last resting-place of
Isabella, wife of Alex. McQuarrie; Margaret
Gillies, beloved wife of Duncan Stewart; of
James Laidlaw and John Anderson. In not
a single case did I fail to find beneath a name
of the dead the place of birth in Scotland.
" Native of Morayshire," "born in Ettrick For-
est/' " native of Appin," "born in Bradalbine,"
"born in Perthshire, parish of Canmore," were
among the records noted.

The Stewarts, McColls, McPhersons, Lyons,
Gillies, Murrays, Sproats, and others, who
moved into the wilds of Halton in the second
decade of the last century, rendered a great
service in transforming a forest into fruitful
fields. Infinitely greater was the service per-
formed in lighting here the torch of liberty, a
torch which, though growing dim at times, has
never been wholly extinguished.

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY
AN OLD TIME DIARY

The Treffry family, who settled in Norwich
township, Oxford County, came from England
in 1834. There were eleven members in the
family, and the cost of the journey from Quebec
to Norwich alone was five hundred dollars. But
that was only the money cost. What the move
involved in hardships suffered and inconven-
iences endured, may be realized in part from a
review of some of the incidents which occurred
on the journey. In this case reliance does not
rest wholly on uncertain memory. John Tref-
fry, the head of the family, kept a diary
from the day he left the old home in England
until the end of the first five years spent in the
bush of Oxford County, and it was from this
diary that most of what follows was taken.

The ocean voyage, and even the passage of
the rapids of the St. Lawrence in Durham boats,
similar to experiences narrated by others, need
not be recounted. But something new is added
by the Treffry s' experiences on the steamer
Enterprise, on which they sailed from Bytown,
now Ottawa, to Kingston. The first adventure
occurred when the steamer sprang a leak and it
became necessary to borrow a pump from a
barge in tow to keep the water under control.
Two days later the engine broke down and the

105

196 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

captain took two of the Durham boats, which
the steamer was also towing, and started for
Kingston to secure assistance. Meantime those
on board the steamer ran short of provisions and
had to make good the deficiency by fishing.
They even tried to capture a deer which
appeared on the bank, but failed in the attempt.
The situation was not made brighter when the
cook mutinied. Finally the captain returned
with help and provisions, and the Enterprise was
able to reach Kingston by the thirteenth of May,
seven days after leaving Ottawa.

From Kingston to Toronto the journey con-
tinued by steamer, but from Toronto to Hamil-
ton passage was by " smack." Among the
passengers was the Hon. James Crooks, father
of Ontario's first Minister of Education. Ham-
ilton was reached at noon of the second day after
leaving Toronto.

From Hamilton Mr. Treffry, one of his sons,
and a Mr. Stonehouse engaged a driver to carry
them to Waterloo. At the first night's stop
the one inn of the place was, in the language
of the diary, full of "immigrants of all sorts,"
and the three of the Treffry party had to sleep
in one bed. The driver slept with his horses
and, the diary records, "fared best of all." At
Stratford accommodation was still more limited;
men, women, and children were all sleeping in
one large room, and Mr. Treffry could hardly
reach his bed without stepping on them. The
news heard next morning was even more dis-
heartening than the lack of accommodation.
Wheat and oats in the Huron Tract had "all
been destroyed by frost," Mr. Treffry was told,

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 197

and the landlord had scoured the whole country
round in a vain effort to secure sufficient hay and
oats of the former harvest for horses sheltered
in his stable. Although it was the eleventh of
June, the diary record states that it "was cold,"
and a man met with stated that for two years
the crops had all been destroyed by frost. To
this the landlady added that she had at that
time planted her garden three times.

Nevertheless Mr. Treffry decided to locate on
lot two on the tenth of Norwich, "a Clergy
Reserve lot abandoned bv a black man. ' It was

"THE DRIVER FARED BEST OF ALL"

not until the twenty-first of November that an
oven was built, and the floor of the cabin was
not laid until December 16th, eight months and
twelve days after the Treffrys had left England.
Some idea of the isolation of the family may be
gathered from the fact that the first letters from
the old home, written on the nineteenth of June,
were received on the twenty-first of September.
The time spent in carrying a letter from Toronto

198 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

to Norwich alone was five days and the cost of
carrying a letter to New York was two sliillings,
Halifax currency. There was at this time, no
uniform currency for Canada.

Everything in use about the new dwelling
was home-made. The oldest son made a wash-
tub, wheel-barrow, and bedsteads, while the head
of the family constructed a wooden harrow.
Part of the furniture consisted of a chair with
elbow rests and a table, both being of cherry.
All of the wood used was cut green out of the

SPINNING WOOLLEN YARN

surrounding bush. On January 29th and 30th,
1835, the oldest of the Treff ry boys was engaged
in making boots for "Litle Henry," a younger
brother, and later in the year the father spent
part of the time "mending boots." Frequent
entries of this nature indicate that the shoes of
the family, as well as furniture and utensils,
were of home manufacture.

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 199

The first grain grown on the Trefiry farm
appears to have been threshed by "rushing."
In orcter to thresh in this way, a pole was placed
horizontally two feet above the floor of the barn
or cabin, and then as much wheat as one could
hold in his hands was beaten over this pole to
thresh out the grain. One entry in the diary
relates that Mr. Treffry spent most of a day
in "rushing" sixty-six sheaves, from which a
bushel and a half of wheat was obtained. After
being threshed the grain was put on sheets to
dry and then sent to a neighbour's to be put
through a "winno wing-machine," the primitive
fanning-mill of that day. Fodder corn was
harvested in a wheel-barrow. The production of
the grain itself involved equally strenuous and
unremitting toil. The fences surrounding the
new clearings were made of green brush, and
when the brush dried these fences formed a very
indifferent protection to growing crops. It is
not surprising, therefore, to find one diary record
stating that Mr. Treffry spent the whole of one
night "keeping cattle out of the oats." Crops
produced at such cost in labour had to be cared
for, and the diary tells us that the whole of the
Treffry family got up between two and three
one morning, when rain threatened, to stack
sheaves of wheat that had been left lying in the
field after the previous day's cutting. Natur-
ally, despite all these labours, there were periods
of shortage, and on October 5th, 1835, the
diary states that it had been found necessary
to borrow "five pounds of flour and four pounds
of Indian meal, being quite out of bread."

Winter cold and summer heat brought their

200 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

trials as well. The fall of 1834 set in early,
before the completion of the Treffry cabin, and
in the diary we are told that the family "suf-
fered much from the wind blowing through the
roof and between the logs. ' ' The other extreme
was experienced in the previous August when
the first clearing was being burned. On some
days not a breath of air stirred. The ther-
mometer registered one hundred and ten in the
shade and the heat was made still more unbear-
able by the fierce fires in the blazing log-heaps.

The first tragedy of the new household came
in the second year in connection with burning
the fallen timber. "Little Henry," a tot of
three, and the chief sunlight in the home, went
out to see his father at work "on the burn/'
Straying too near a pile of blazing brush his
dress caught fire and in a moment the tiny lad
was wrapped in flames. The child was seized by
the father, the blaze extinguished, and the
quivering body carried to the house, where oil
and flour were applied to the burns and laud-
anum administered to ease the pain. Death
came painlessly at midnight, the little one
"going off into a sweet sleep." "The trial to
his parents, brother, and sisters is very great,"
the simple record goes on, "yet we have abun-
dant reason to be thankful to the Almighty for
removing him as easily and so soon. Had he
lived until the following day his distress would
have been beyond description."

The Treffrys were friends and many of their
neighbours were of the same faith. These, all
came to offer sympathy and assistance. One
brought a coffin in which to enclose the body;

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 201

others furnished teams for the funeral; four
neighbours carried the remains to Paulina
Southwick's. " There," the diary says, "after
sitting a short time we set off in three wagons to
the burial ground. Our worthy and kind friend
Justus Wilson had made the needful prepar-
ations at the grave. After sitting some time
at the meeting-house we removed the corpse to
the ground."

The diary quoted from contains the names
of the passengers of the ship BragiUa on which
the Treffrys sailed from England. There were
fifty-nine in all and only one of the company
had been engaged in agricultural pursuits before
sailing for Canada. Mr. Treffry himself had
been a merchant in England. The others were
cabinet-makers, miners, shoemakers, old sol-
diers, carpenters, and so on. Still there is no
doubt that the bulk of them settled on the land.
Certainly the Treffrys did so, and made good in
their new occupation. The first Tuckers, of
Wellington County, were weavers in England,
yet they and their direct descendants made an
exceedingly creditable record as farmers in a
county where good farming is the rule. In fact
comparatively few of those who came from
England and Scotland between 1820 and 1850
had been engaged in farming before leaving the
Old Land, but they and their descendants were
mainly instrumental in laying the foundations
of agricultural Ontario. The opportunity is
open to the idle of our cities, whether newly
arrived or native born, to emulate the example
of the heroic men and women of a past gener-
ation. The opportunity is infinitely greater

202 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

to-day, because those now here have at least
some knowledge of conditions, which the pion-
eers had not, and there is no comparison between
the hardships for beginners of that day and
beginners of the present.

MISFORTUNE OUTLIVED

"When my father settled in South Dumfries,
he and his neighbour, Ford, shared a house in
common. All the lumber used in that house
father carried on his back for three-quarters of
a mile. His own lot was eight miles away and,
after toiling from daylight till dark in building
a house on his own place, he went to Ford's to
spend the night. While father and his neighbour
were preparing homes in the bush, their wives
were working in Hamilton to earn money with
which to buy needed supplies. Mother spent
her money in buying a cow, and the cow's back
was broken in the woods shortly after being
brought home. When a sow which father had
purchased was killed by a bear and the little
pigs she left behind perished from hunger, it
seemed as if the accumulation of misfortunes
was almost too much to be borne. But there
was a silver lining to the dark clouds which then
hung overhead. In buying the sow father had
paid part cash and given a note for the balance.
When he went to pay the note the holder refused
to accept another cent, declaring that father had
already paid more than he had received
value for."

The above story, told by Andrew Elliott, well
known for years in Farmers' Institute work,

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 203

was paralleled by what Mrs. John Shearer,
mother of another well-known Institute worker,
related shortly afterwards.

"When our family first settled near where
Bright now stands, wolves came regularly to
drink at a spring on our place," Mrs. Shearer
said. ' 'I was only eight years old then, but young
as I wras, and notwithstanding that wild animals
were everywhere, I frequently went to Hayville,
six miles off, to exchange butter and eggs for
household supplies. My load was a heavy one
going — five or six pounds of butter and as many
dozen eggs. But as the butter sold for five cents
in summer and never over ten cents in winter,
and eggs at the same price per dozen, and as
all purchased supplies were as dear in propor-
tion as these commodities were cheap, my
burden was light enough coming back.

"The lumber for our house was hauled four-
teen miles, and father made the shingles by
hand. When the first settlers went in, the land
had not been surveyed, and the settlers, besides
having to pay three dollars per acre for bush
lots, were compelled by the Government to put
up two years' rental for their occupancy prio
to survey. Nor was that all. When the survey
wras finally made a number found themselves on
wrong lots, and this led to much confusion
and loss.

"For years, before doctors were available,
men travelled miles to have wounds, which they
had received in the bush, drawn together by a
paste which father was skilled in making.
Night after night, too, I have held a candle while
he fashioned coffins for those who died. The

204 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

first burial in Chesterfield cemetery was that of
a little child of Robert Brown, who afterwards
moved to Kincardine. No minister was avail-
able, but the neighbours gathered by the grave-
side and stood with bared heads beneath the
overhanging trees, while Father Baird read a
chapter and Father Scott led in prayer and then
all joined in singing a Psalm.

"This wras not the only case in which the
pioneers provided their own religious services.
Every Sabbath day a community prayer meet-
ing was held in Chesterfield schoolhouse and a
Sunday school was conducted for parents and
children alike. Half-yearly visits were paid by
the Rev. Mr. Ritchie, and during these visits
marriages were solemnized and the rite of bap-
tism administered to children. I have seen as
many as thirty children baptized in one day."

And the Elliotts and Shearers who saw all
this — who moved into unbroken forests where
there were no schools, no churches, and but few
neighbours — lived to see the day when from the
Elliott farm alone the cash sales ran up to throe
thousand dollars a year, and the value of all farm
property in Oxford was placed at thirty-two
millions. With this increase in wealth came the
blessings of a community life enriched by
churches, schools, and all the other adjuncts
of the advanced civilization rural Ontario
enjoys to-day.

CONTENDING WITH MUD

Each district in Ontario had its own peculiar
form of hardships in the early days. On the

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 205

extreme west of Lambton, facing on the St.
Clair River, the superabundance of water was
one of the chief causes of hardship. The land
there is little above the level of the lake, and the
day after a rain the soil has the consistency of
glue. What it must have been like before roads

OX YOKE

PRIMITIVE LATCH

were opened up and graded will be readily
imagined by any person familiar with the con-
ditions of the locality to-day.

Wood was the first money crop in West
Lambton — elm, oak, and walnut logs for the

206 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

mills, and cordwood for the wood-burning
steamers that took on fuel at the river docks
on their way up the lakes.

"I have seen," said W. T. Henry of Sombra,
"six or seven yoke of oxen engaged in 'snaking'
one log out of the bush; and even then the
cattle had all they could do. The sloughs were
full of water. As the log passed through
these its head was completely submerged, and
it required the power of a steam tug to pull
it along. The men were as hard worked as the
cattle. Boys of seventeen did the work of grown
men. When engaged in hauling wood to the
river docks, three loads, of two and a half or
three cords each, brought five or six miles, was
an average day's work. As a lad of seventeen,
I have unloaded my first load at six o'clock in
the morning. People to-day have no idea of
the magnitude of the cordwood business of those
days. You see those old piles that line the
river near the shore f * said Mr. Henry pointing
to the west. "They formed the foundation
piers of old-time wood docks. These lined the
river almost as completely as wharves line the
front of a modern city harbour, and even then
they didn't afford accommodation for all the
wood brought out. I have seen the road, lead-
ing inland from the St. Clair towards Wilkes-
port, so closely piled up with wood on either
side that you could hardly get a team through.
Over one 'of the docks near the outlet of this
road as much as a million cords of wood must
have been delivered from first to last."

James Bowles, reeve of the township, who
for years had been largely engaged in lumbering

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 207

in that section, supplemented what Mr. Henry
had said. "In the very early days/' he said,
"a bushel of potatoes was considered a fair
price for a fine walnut tree. Even at a compar-
atively late date, from two and a half to three
and a half dollars per thousand was considered a
reasonable price for elm logs. When the figure
went up to four dollars people thought that they
were making lots of money. If I had on my home
hundred acres all the elm timber that has been
cut from it, the growing trees would be worth
over fifteen thousand dollars. There must have
been a million feet cut from the place before I
secured it."

Not many years ago Morpeth was and Ridge-
town was not. To-day Bidgetown is a thriving
town and Morpeth is almost unknown. The
changed conditions are in this case wholly due
to, the influence of that most powerful of all
factors in regulating commercial conditions—
the railway. The Burys and Springsteins,
whose homes are near Morpeth, can tell you of
a time when that thriving little village formed
one of the great market centres for wheat in
Western Ontario. At that time there was no
Bidgetown and very little of Chatham. In fact,
farmers then teamed grain from the immediate
vicinity of where the Maple City now stands
to sell it in Morpeth. It was a common thing
to see three or four vessels lying at the dock
on the lake front taking on grain, while a
stretch of teams a mile and a half long, waiting
for delivery, extended back along the road.
And, even as Naples in a day far back had its
Pompeii, so had Morpeth its suburbs. One of

208 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

these was Antrim. Antrim was right on the
lake front, with a brick tavern (loved by the
sailors of that day), as its social centre. To-day
not a sign of the suburb remains; the hotel has
disappeared to the last brick, and of the other
buildings not a trace is to be found.

SMALLPOX AND FEVER

Already ten days at sea, twenty-two days
more to spend on the ocean, a crowded emigrant
ship, and — smallpox on board. That was the
situation with which Hugh Johnson, one of the
pioneers of the township of Bosanquet, was
faced when on his way from the old home in
Scotland to the wilds of Upper Canada.

"I was," said Mr. Johnson, " accompanied by
my father, mother, six brothers, one sister, and
my own wife and two children, the youngest only
three months old. We had left Glasgow on June
18th, 1847, in the ''Euclid of Liverpool/
with a full list of emigrants bound for
Quebec, and it was on the tenth day out that
the ship's doctor reported that a little girl, who
had been taken ill was dowrn with smallpox.
For the next twenty-two days we were, day
and night, in the presence of one of the greatest
plagues that has afflicted humanity. The
situation was not so bad for our party, although
the sick were on both sides of us, because most
of our family had been vaccinated; for others
it was one continuous horror.

"Bad as it was on board, it became infinitely
worse when we reached quarantine. On our
arrival at the dock, ropes were stretched across

WORKING INTO THE PLAT COUNTRY 209

the deck so as to leave a passage in the middle.
A doctor was stationed on each side of this
passage and only one person was allowed
through at a time. All those who showed any
symptoms of the disease were forced to go into
quarantine, while others were sent ashore. The
only exceptions made wTere in the cases of well
mothers, who were permitted to accompany
sick babes. I am an old man now, but not for
a moment have I forgotten the scene as parents
left children, brothers were parted from sis-
ters, or wives and husbands were separated
not knowing whether they should ever meet
again. In some cases they never did meet again.

"But, bad as was our plight, that of the
emigrants on board a ship from Ireland was
much worse. This vessel led us up the Gulf,
and for mile after mile we passed through
bedding which had been thrown overboard
from her decks after the people to whom it once
belonged had died. It was the year of the Irish
famine. The poor folk on that Irish ship,
wasted by starvation and fever-stricken when
they went aboard, died like flies. We were told
that half of those who left Ireland in that craft
found a watery grave before the wretched rem-
nant reached Quebec.

"Our family escaped illness altogether, and,
after landing at Quebec, we made a fairly quick
passage to Hamilton, most of the way by
steamer. We had relatives in Lobo, who had
settled there twenty years before, and it was
our intention to go to them. When we reached
Hamilton, we were fortunate enough to find a
couple of wagon teams, that had just come in

210 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

from London, going back light. These we
engaged for eighteen dollars to take us along.

"I remember one little incident that occurred
as we were passing through Paris or Wood-
stock, I forget which. While waiting there a
young woman, after surveying us from the door
of an hotel, said we were the 'best looking lot of
emigrants she had ever seen.'

"From London we went out towards Lobo,
and as we were on the way we met some people
going toward the town we had just left. We
looked at them and they looked at us, but
both parties passed without speaking. It after-
wards turned out that these were our relatives,
who were going to London to meet us; but, as
we had fitted ourselves out with hats purchased
after our arrival in Canada, they thought that
we were Canadians.

"However, we all finally came together in the
home of our relatives, and there we remained
for five weeks. That is where we had our first
experience in a Canadian harvest field; but it
was nothing very new to us as the cutting was
all done with old-fashioned reaping-hooks. Even
the ' cradle' was not in general use at that time.

"Our spare time was spent in looking for
land; but this was an idle quest, as all the good
land near there had been taken up; and so we
went back to Williamstown, where settlement
had begun two years before. We found there
trees cut down but not yet burned up, and the
whole country had the appearance of being
stricken with the direst poverty. So drear was
the spectacle that father expressed the wish
that he had never seen Canada. Another thing

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 211

that depressed him was the fact that we seemed
so far inland — so completely out of touch with
the great world outside. We heard of Sarnia
and the lake on which it fronted, and determined
to go there. We started on foot through
Adelaide, and stopped at the Wesley tavern for
dinner. In the cool of the evening we resumed
our walk, and near dark we saw a group of
figures about a great fire in the bush and, with
pictures of wild Indians and burning at the
stake in mind, fear filled our hearts. Great was
our relief when we discovered that the men were
settlers making potash.

"We kept on walking, expecting to find some
house at which we could spend the night; but,
no house appearing, we at last — late in the night
—went into a log barn and made our beds in a
haymow. We had a gun with us, and I slept
with that in my arms all night long so that I
might be ready in case we were attacked by
bears. But no bears appeared. Indeed,
although the country about here was practically
all bush then, I have never seen a wild bear in
my life, and I have seen but one deer. I suppose
the presence of an Indian reserve at Kettle
Point accounted for the scarcity in that section
in the early days.

"Next day we started for Warwick and had
dinner at a tavern then kept by Mrs. Nixon.
She told us we would find better land on the
lake shore, and gave us a letter to an old naval
captain, named Crooks, who was living near
Errol, on the shore of Lake Huron. While
following the road we came to a marshy cross-
ing near where Camlachie is now situated, and

212 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

as there was a cow-path running off to one side
we determined to follow that, thinking that it
would take us around the wet place. We soon
found instead that we were all the time getting
further and further into the woods, and feared
that we might lose ourselves and die in the
wilderness. So we took a course by the sun and
struck off in a direction that we thought might
bring us to the road at a point beyond the marsl>

"At last we came to a house and asked for
something to eat. The woman who lived there
said she had no flour but would cook us some
potatoes. We decided to push on, meantime
allaying our hunger with berries picked on the
roadside. At another house we again asked for
food and once more found that nothing but
potatoes was to be had. At last we came to the
lake, and were cheered by the thought that we
were once more in touch with the great world
beyond. Soon afterwards we reached Errol, and
there we had supper.

11 After supper we asked for Captain Crooks,
and were told that he lived eight miles further
up the shore. We started for his place and
passed a logging bee on the way. It was there
T first saw oxen at work. When we got to
Captain Crooks7 place, the Captain came out and
asked us who we were. We told him our
names and said we were looking for land. He
invited us to stay all night, promising to show us
land in the morning, and land where there was
no frost such as they had in Lobo. This sounded
good to us, and the fact that it lay alongside the
lake was an additional attraction. We made
our selection, but had to go to Goderich, where

WORKING! INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 213

there was an office of the Canada Company, to
complete the purchase, the price of the land
being four dollars an acre. We put up a house
that fall. Everybody helped us in getting a
start; the whole neighbourhood was then like
one big family. ' '

Speaking further of conditions that existed
in the early days of the settlement Mr. Johnson
naturally referred to "Joe Little," a Methodist
missionary, who was one of the characters of
pioneers times. Little was appointed the first
tax-collector for the settlement, and when he
found a settler who could not pay he offered to
make up the amount himself.

"He soon found many who could not pay,''
said Mr. Johnson, k ' and the result was that when
he got through collecting, instead of having
something coining to him, he was in debt.

"The people thought Little would know better
next time, so they appointed him collector for
the following year as well. But the same thing
happened again. Not only that, but once, when
Little came across a poor settler with only one
pair of boots, and these full of holes, he took off
his own good shoes and exchanged them for
those of the less fortunate fellow. Little had to
use basswood bark to tie the worn-out boots to
his feet as he went on his round. That is an
illustration of the spirit of the pioneer days in
Bosanquet," said Mr. Johnson, as a hurried
interview came to a premature end.

Not far from where the foregoing interview
took place, under the shelter of a bit of primeval
forest which breaks the winds that sweep in
from Lake Huron, is a little burying ground

214 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

where some of those who assisted Mr. Johnson
in subduing the wilds of Bosanquot are resting
from life's labours. Here lie the Whytes, the
Sissons, the Johnsons, and others.

Not all had reached maturity when the sum-
mons came. "Our daughter and our son-in-

PEDDLE^

ASSESSOR

law" are words inscribed on a stone which
records that death came to a young couple, one
of whom died in April, 1852, and the other in
July of the same year, at the ages of twenty
and" twenty-one. Here, too, smallpox took its

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 215

toll, and one of the sleepers was buried at mid-
night with none but a brother present to shed
the last tears by an open grave.

Of all the silent reminders of those who
are gone, none tell a more pathetic story than
that behind the simple inscription " Found
Drowned," above the name of Robert Parkinson.
Parkinson was not one of the pioneers. He was
an American, and his body, with life barely
extinct, was found in June, 1885, on the shore
near the little cemetery. How he came there
need not be told, but a brother in the United
States, who heard of what had happened, asked
that Christian burial be given the remains.
Strangers interred the body beside their own
dead and erected a simple marble slab to mark
the place.

Away to the east, at the junction of the
twenty-seventh of Warwick and the London
road, is another little cemetery with a history.
Near here Lieutenant James Robertson, of the
Seventy-Ninth Foot, located in 1850, and twelve
years later, at the age of seventy-eight, his body
was laid at rest at "the corners" within sight
of his home. On the monument is recorded the
fact that he was a native of Perthshire. There
is given, too, a list of the engagements in which
he formed part of the line against which the
columns of the Little Corsican, then over-run-
ning Europe, spent themselves in vain. The
list is an imposing one, including Corunna,
Busaco, Fuentes D'Onoro, Salamanca, Pyren-
nees, Toulouse, and closing with that great-
est drama of the nineteenth century — Waterloo.
In the same little enclosure are other stones

216

which mark the resting-place of wife, son,

son's wife, and two grandsons. Only one

of all the family is left in the person of
a daughter.

NEIGHBOURS IN NEED AND IN PLENTY

In the creation of the Talbot settlement in
Elgin County, both elements that entered into
the make-up of the original population of
Ontario joined. Some of the fathers of that
settlement came from the United States, while
others came from across the seas.

"The first to come," William Watson, a son
of one of the originals, told me, "were John
Pearce, Stephen Backus, and Walter Storey
from Ohio, and George Crane from Ireland.
After their arrival, and before 1816, there fol-
lowed James Watson, John Barker, Burgess
Swisher, James Burwell, Charles Benedict,
Timothy Neal, David Wallace, James Best, Neil
McNair, Joseph Vansyth, Jekyll Younglove,
John Mitchell, Benjamin Johnson, Obadiah
Pettit, and John Cowan of Pingal."

When Mr. Watson told the story, he was able
to point to the remains of a frame structure
that formed the original home of the Watson
family. Not far off was a venerable spruce,
which his father brought as a seedling from near
Buffalo and planted in Canada. On the same
lot were eighty apple trees, out of an original
plantation of one hundred and seventy-three,
grown from seed that Mr. Watson's father had
brought all the way from Pennsylvania. This
was probably the first bearing orchard west of

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 217

the Niagara frontier, and for years it was the
sole source of supply in apples for a large
neighbourhood. On the Watson homestead there
was erected, too, the first school in that part of
the country.

"The troubles of the new settlement began
with the War of 1812-15," Mr. Watson went on.
"After the defeat of Procter at the Thames, the
American forces burned Colonel Talbot's mill
and stole the horses and even the furniture and
provisions belonging to the settlers. They also
took the men prisoners, but afterwards released
them on parole. The result of the devastation
caused by war was that the little colony, which
had just begun to get on its feet, had to start
all over again.

"Even without the handicap caused by war
the struggle was strenuous enough. If a man
broke a logging-chain, he had to travel sixty-
six miles to the nearest blacksmith at Long
Point to get it fixed. Grists, usually carried on
horseback through the bush, had to be taken
to the same point. My father once brought in
fifteen barrels of flour by sail-boat, and next
day there was only half a barrel left. All the
rest had been divided among the neighbours.
Even I can remember when it was a day's
journey to St. Thomas, more than half the dis-
tance being over corduroy roads through the
bush. I recollect, too, when there was no cash
market for wheat. Later on when we did get
cash, farmers sold, for fifty cents a bushel,
wheat grown from seed harrowed in among the
stumps with an ox-team, cut with a sickle, bound
by hand, and threshed with a flail. It was almost

218 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

impossible to get enough cash to pay taxes and
other unavoidable bills, but to the people of that
day there may have been some compensation in
the fact that whiskey was only eighteen cents
a gallon.

"A real boon it was that venison and fish
could be had in abundance. I shot many deer
in my younger days in the settlement and also
helped to make war on their natural enemies,
the wolves. The latter were so numerous that
it was impossible to keep sheep.

"For years the settlers were without a regular
mail service. It was not until 1816 that a mail
route was established from Watford to Talbot.
Even this was slow and irregular and the cost
of postage fearfully high.

"There were no ministers in the early days
and marriages were solemnized by magistrates.
Although my father was not one of the original
settlers, he was here seven years before he heard
a sermon. The first service was held by the
Presbyterians in 1819, and a Methodist mission
was established shortly afterwards.

"But all were brothers then, and this greatly
helped in making hardships endurable. If there
was a barn to be erected, all assisted in its erec-
tion. When a wedding was to take place, the
whole neighbourhood was invited. But the great
social events of the settlement were the neigh-
bourhood dances, which were held every week in
winter, the neighbours taking turns in providing
house room. The biggest room in the house was
cleared, the great logs roared and crackled in
the open fireplace, and flying feet kept timo
with the wild whirl of the music."

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 219

220 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

But the joyous throngs of that day have
passed with the primeval forest. In the old
churchyard at Tyrconnell they lie beneath the
green sod, while the waves of Lake Erie
murmur softly as they slumber.

WILD TURKEYS, PIGEONS, AND RACOONS

When David Dobie first settled on the
banks of the Thames in the Township of Ekfrid,
there were but a few scattered settlers on the
Longwood Road; between that road and the
river, a distance of some three miles, not a tree
had been cut. On the north side of the stream
there was not a house to be found in a stretch
of ten miles, and on the Dunwich side the forest
extended without a break for a distance of
eleven miles. The Glencoe of to-day is a city
in comparison with the London of that time, for
when Mr. Dobie first saw London there were
only two brick buildings in the place.

" There was," Mr. Dobie said, "a great deal
of fine walnut growing along the river Thames,
and, when a market was found for it in
Detroit, it sold at seventy-five cents a standard
log — a stardard making three hundred feet of
lumber. Immense rafts of pine were afterwards
floated from Dorchester, beyond London, to
Detroit. I have seen half a dozen of these rafts,
each one hundred and fifty feet long, go down in
a single day, some of the logs measuring three
feet through at the butt.

"Another picturesque feature was added by
the Indians. Indians then constantly passed
to and fro in their canoes between the reserve

WORKING INTO THE PLAT COUNTRY 221

at Moraviantown on the one side and Muncey-
town on the other.

"Game? The woods were full of game.
Standing where we are now I have heard three
packs of wolves, from different points, howling
at once. One morning, in going out on a hunt
after a slight snowfall, I saw the marks where

CARRYING WATER

RACCOONS

twenty-five deer had lain on a knoll during the
darkness, and a little further on, where twenty-
seven more had rested. Going further still, we
sighted the two lots in one bunch.

222 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"Wild turkeys were still more numerous. We
sowed our first wheat among the stumps from
which the trunks had been cut and burned.
Next morning, after the sowing, it seemed as
if there was a turkey on each stump. Some of
the birds were big fellows, too. I have shot some
that weighed thirty pounds, and in the fall, after
the walnuts had fallen, they were rolling fat.
Once I came up with a flock in a hollow; they
did not see me but had been alarmed by my
approach, and all crowded togther. I got six
of them with one shot.

" Pigeons were the most numerous of all.
Sometimes it seemed as if a new-sown field was
blue with the hosts of them. The first herald
of their approach would be a darkening of the
sky, and, when in full flight, masses of them
would stretch as far as one could see in either
direction. They nested in a grove over the
river, and just before the young squabs were
ready to fly settlers wrould shake them off the
limbs by the dozen. They were then considered
in the best condition.

"But the game was far from being all profit.
Clearings were small, and what wheat was pro-
duced in the early days sold at fifty cents per
bushel. In many cases the crop, scanty at best,
was almost wholly destroyed between the rav-
ages of deer, racoons, and wild fowl; a serious
thing for settlers who were nearly all desper-
ately poor. Some of them, who had been helped
out from the old country, had not a second coat
to their backs. One year was particularly hard,
and a few of the people were obliged to dig up
the seed potatoes they had planted for food.

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 223

"The Scotch were perhaps the best off. Most
of them had been sailors or fishermen in the old
land. They spent their spare time on sailing
vessels on the lakes and earned money in that
way. One of these, John Graham, afterwards
living near OHencoe, sailed the lakes for sixty
years, latterly as captain of a steamer.

"In the beginning, not even so much as sur-
veyors' lines had been run, and people fre-
quently lost their way in the woods. On one
occasion two children, sent on a message, wan-
dered into the marsh west of where Button now
is to pick blueberries, and could not find their
way out again. The whole neighbourhood turned
out and kept up the search for three days. The
searchers found the place where the children
had lain down to sleep but could not find the
little ones. They had given up hope, when the
lost ones suddenly appeared at the edge of a
clearing. The children, on seeing the searchers,
whom they did not know, ran back into the
woods, and it was with difficulty that the party
came up with them and brought them home.
The stray ones were, fortunately, none the worse
for their adventure, blueberries having provided
them with abundant sustenance. "

Then Mr. Dobie proceeded to tell of the only
case I have heard of, after diligent enquiry, in
which human life was destroyed by wild beasts.

"In the early days," said he, "whiskey was in
abundant supply at barn-raisings, bees, and
other such operations. One night after a raising,
a party of the helpers were on their way home,
and one, who had imbibed more freely than the
others, refused to go further. He was accord-

224

ingly left in a fence corner to sleep off the effects
of the liquor. Next morning, on his failure to
return home, some men started out to look for
him. They found the place where he had slept,
but there was scarcely a shred of body, or even
of clothing, left. Wolves had found him help-
less, torn him limb from limb, and feasted on
the mangled carcass.

" Liquor was plentiful enough even at a later
date than I speak of. On the Longwood Road
there were six taverns in nine miles, and there
were two distilleries near Delaware and one at
Mount Brydges to keep these and other taverns
in the neighbourhood in stock. After Mosa, or
Brooke fair, it was a common thing for men to
lie out all night by the roadside.

''Another tragedy of the early days," said
Mr. Dobie, as he thought again of the man torn
by wolves, ''originated in the refusal of accom-
modation to an Indian. One night a dusky
hunter came to the cabin of Archie Crawford
and asked leave to stay all night. Crawford had
no accommodation available and told the latter
to go on to the next cabin. The Indian had his
gun over his shoulder and, as he turned to the
door, he glanced along the barrel, pulled the
trigger and Crawford fell dead with a bullet
through his head. No, the murderer was not
arrested. He disappeared in the wilderness,
and Ekfrid 's first murder went unavenged.

"A man named Gunn, who lived in Talbot
Settlement, had rare skill in the setting of
broken bones. He frequently travelled twenty-
five miles on horseback over bush trails to set
a broken limb."

WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY 225

How Mr. Dobie happened to settle in Ekfrid,
and the story of the journey he and his friends
had to make in reaching there, is no less interest-
ing than his reminiscenses of the pioneer days.
In the early 'thirties a number of settlers near
Frederieton, N. B., became dissatisfied with
their surroundings and determined to seek out
new homes in Upper Canada. Accordingly
Andrew Coulter, James Allan, and a German
were sent to spy out the land. On arriving at
Windsor they walked to Chatham, from there
to Sarnia, and spent Christmas at Westminster.
Next spring the party returned to Frederieton,
and it was decided that only those named above
should remove to Ekfrid; but Mr. Dobie 's father
and Mr. Clanahan, whose son was afterwards
postmaster at Glencoe, decided to seek homes in
the new land as well.

"We went by schooner from St. John to New
York," he said, "and spent thirteen days in
covering the seven hundred miles, twice as long
as it takes to cross the Atlantic to-day. From
New York we took the steamer to Albany;
then by Erie Canal to* Buffalo, and from
Buffalo we travelled by steamer to Port Stanley.
On the way from Port Stanley to our new home,
a distance of fifty miles, two days were spent.
All told, we wore a month on the journey."

By way of contrast, it may be said that when
Mr. Dobie and his daughter paid a visit to the
old home at Frederieton after railway commun-
ication had been established, they were just
thirty-four hours on tho way — less by fourteen
hours than the time spent in making the last
fiftv miles to Ekfrid in the 'thirties.

226

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

KINGSTON ROAD A SEA OF MUD

This story, which had its beginning in the
neighbourhood of Brockville, was told me one
June evening in 1898 by B. McLean Purdy as
we sat together, where Eugenia Falls marks the
opening of the picturesque valley of the Beaver.
Mr. Purdy was born near Brockville, but in 1837
the family decided to move to where Lindsay
now stands.

"From Brockville to Cobourg the trip was
made in comparative comfort by steamer," Mr.
Purdy began, "but after leaving Cobourg it was
one trouble after another and each succeed-
ing trouble seemed a little worse than the one
just surmounted. Kingston Boad appeared to be
a bottomless sea of mud — mud which might have
served for plastering houses but was a most
unsatisfactory material for road-making. The
first stop was near Port Hope, and there
some of the family belongings, which were too
heavy to move further in the then state of the
roads, were temporarily stored with a relative.
Our second night stop was at Oshawa, which
was at that time just being 'hatched out.' Next
day we drove fifteen miles to Lake Scugog, and
the following night people and horses were
sheltered in the same building — that is, if the
place deserved the name building. Earth

227

228 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

formed the floor, there were great open spaces
between the logs of which the walls were built,
and we could count the stars overhead by look-
ing up through the breaks in the roof. Luckily
there was no rain that night. Next day men,
women, and horses were once more close com-
panions, all being herded together on a flat-
bottomed boat for the voyage over Lake Scugog.
Scugog then no more deserved the name of lake
than the shelter of the night before deserved the
name of house. It was a mass of marsh and
grass, the only clear water being that in the
channel followed by the scow. Camp was
pitched on Washburn Island, and next day we
reached our destination at the point where
Lindsay is now located. A relative, Wm.
Purdy, was living there. His father, Jesse
Purdy, had lived on the Hudson before the
American Revolution, and was given four
hundred acres in return for building the first
mill in Lindsay.

"The whole place was a tangled mass of cedar
and hardwood; but visions of the future were
present, and the remaining two hundred acres
forming the townsite of to-day were sold in half
acre lots at twenty and thirty dollars with five
acre park lots at proportionate prices.

"In 1854, I moved to Meaford, following the
route north of Scugog, south of Lake Simcoe,
and up through Nottawasaga to what is now
Duntroon. Duntroon has been a place of many
names. When I first reached there, a man by
the name of McNabb was keeping tavern and
the place bore his name. Obe Wellings bought
the tavern later, and the name of the locality

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 229

changed with the change in ownership of the
hostelry. Altogether there were at least a dozen
changes of name before Duntroon was finally
hit upon. Continuing on our way we found
fairly good sleighing over the Blue Mountains,
but when we struck Beaver Valley we were once
more in liquid mud. The Parks and Heathcotes
had settled in the valley before us and there
were a few buildings in Meaford, one of these
being occupied as a store by one of my brothers.
Living in Meaford then were Wm. Stephens,
D. L. Dayton, John Layton, and Philip and
Frank Barber. After remaining a short time
at Meaford, I pushed on to Eugenia Falls, where
I made my permanent home.

"At that time, which was before the Northern
Railway had been extended to Collingwood,
supplies for Meaford were teamed from Barrie
to Willow Creek, and from there they were
floated down the Nottawasaga River to its
mouth. They were then put on board bateaux,
which, waiting for favourable wind, hugged the
shore of Georgian Bay to Meaford.

"In the first years of the settlement, incoming
settlers provided a sufficient market for the
products of those who had arrived earlier.
When a surplus was produced we had to
team our stuff to Toronto, the journey occupying
several days. Wheat disposed of, after all the
labour involved in production and marketing,
sold for a dollar a bushel. Return loads con-
sisted of such things as salt, bought at from two
dollars to two dollars and a half a barrel; calico,
at twenty-five cents per yard, and tea, up to one
dollar a pound.

230 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"The first houses in the valley consisted of
two rooms, one above and one below, the upper
floor being reached by a ladder. Instead of
chairs we had benches made of split slabs. Beds
and tables were made of the same material.

"A colony of beaver had a dam where
Sloan's mill was afterwards built, but these timid
animals left soon after white men began to come
in. Near where Kimberley afterwards sprang
up was a favourite resort for both deer and
wolves, the ground frequently being tracked like
a cattle-yard. Once, when I had occasion for
some reason to retrace my steps, I found that a
wolf had been stalking me.

"In the early days of the settlement, the men,
after putting in their spring crops in the scanty
clearings, went off in twos and threes to earn
money in the more advanced settlements at 'the
front. ' Meantime the women remained to keep
lonely vigil in the log cabins, while the night
wind was pierced by the howling of wolves in
the neighbouring forest. Frail in body some of
those women may have been, but granite in
spirit they all were."

Shortly after his arrival at the Falls, Mr.
Purdy began securing records for what he
called "The Eugenia Falls Album." In this
album visitors who went there during a period
covering nearly half a century were asked to
record their impressions.

One of the first entries was made by Joseph
Wilson, of Nottawasaga, and James Perry, of
Essa, who built a saw-mill at the Falls in
May, 1858.

On June 8th of the same year, R. L.

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY

231

Tindall, "Minister of the Gospel, Melauchthon, "
ventured the prediction that "some day this
will be a place of resort and of much business. ' '
N. C. Gowan, a son of Ogle R. (rowan, who was a
visitor in 1860, also hazarded the role of prophet
when he wrote, — "God has done it nobly, wisely,

CALL TO DINNER

DINNER GONG

well; a city here will rise." Both prophesies
have been fulfilled, in part at least. This beauty
spot is a "place of resort," and, if a city has
not risen at the site, power generated at the
Falls, and carried by that most mysterious and

232 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

wonderful of agencies, the electric wire, is used
in turning the wheels of industry in a dozen
urban centres.

There are hundreds of pages in the Album
with sentiments grave and gay expressed
thereon, one of the best being that left by Silas
Hallett, of Ravenna, who visited the Falls in
1888. "This is a day that will never fade from
my memory." Mr. Hallett voiced what every
man, capable of appreciating Nature's works,
must feel on visiting Eugenia, one of the most
beautiful scenes in all Ontario.

John Sewell, who went into Euphrasia in
1845, told of one incident that furnished a strik-
ing mental picture of conditions in the country
south of Meaford at that time.

"One day when my brother and I were out
setting mink-traps, a man suddenly rose up
before us and I was a good deal more scared than
I would have been had a bear appeared in place
of the man," said Mr. Sewell as I chatted with
him one evening. "I did not suppose that there
was any other than my brother and myself
for miles around. The stranger said his name
was Ellwood, that he was a trapper, and that
his home was in the United States.

"Fifteen years later than this, when Samuel
Wylie settled near Woodhouse, the seventeen
mile drive to Meaford was considered a long
day's journey, and over part of the way horses
were up to their middle in mud. One family
that came in about that time had to cut up
cotton bags to make clothing and another was
forced to subsist for some time on turnips.
Some food, however, was cheap enough. At the

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 233

Chantler store in Meaford salted suckers, could
he bought at a dollar a barrel, and salmon as
long as a man's arm cost ten cents. But dollars
and cents were scarce — just how scarce is indi-
cated by the fact that one year's taxes for the
whole township of St. Vincent amounted to
sixty-three dollars, thirty-seven and a half cents.
Robert Mitchell was the first collector for the
township, and he had to pay the taxes over to
the treasurer in Barrie. Once, when Mr.
Mitchell was about ready to start off for this
purpose, he discovered that the wallet containing
the tax money was missing. Looking about he
saw his old sow with the purse in her mouth,
scattering the money over the snow. The bills
were recovered but the small change was lost/'
The extension of the Northern Railway to
Collingwood made easier the task of settling
the Georgian Bay townships west of that point ;
but even then the hardships and dangers
were trying enough. When the mother of J. W.
Patton first went as a young woman to Rocklyn,
in Euphrasia, she journeyed by rail to Colling-
wood. A letter sent in advance asking her
brother-in-law to meet her at Rocklyn had not
been delivered, so the remaining twenty miles, a
good deal of the way through the bush, was
begun all alone and on foot. At a still later date,
when Mrs. Patton desired to visit her old home,
she and her husband carried their child while
walking to Meaford, thirteen miles away, to take
boat for Collingwood. On the return journey, no
steamer being due, Mrs. Patton and another
woman engaged passage by small boat from Col-
lingwood to Meaford. "A storm came up while

234 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

we were on our way," Mrs. Pattern told me, "and
I had to use the baby's hat in baling out the boat.
My clothes became so soaked with water that
I could hardly move, and I thought that each
wave as it came would engulf us."

PAYING TAXES WITH HAY

Most of the records of the early days in
Huron on which I have drawn, were obtained
from those of the second generation. But 1
found one man, Moses Pierce, of McGillivray
township, who could tell of what "these eyes
have seen and these ears have heard."

"I had been living in Markham township,"
said Mr. Pierce, "and in my early days Yonge
Street was fairly passable only as far north as
Thornhill. Passengers could ride that far by
stage ; but on going further they not only had to
walk, but at intervals had to assist in prying the
stage out of bog holes with handspikes. When
I left for the Huron tract, the usual means of
making the journey was by boat from Toronto
to Hamilton and after that it was ride by wagon
or foot it. We took wagon from Toronto to
Hamilton, and that was a three days' journey.
London to Clandeboye, twenty miles, took
another day. For the last five or six miles to the
place where we settled, we had to zig-zag
through the bush with an ox-team.

"The land in that section belonged to the
Canada Company and the price was from three
to ten dollars per acre. This may seem to those
of the present day a low price for land,
but where was the money to come from?

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 235

Even oak timber was unsaleable here then. Some
of the finest oak that ever grew was split into
rails to make snake-fences, and the timber was
still sound as a bell fifty years later. Other
equally good oak was rolled into log-heaps and
burned. Those logs to-day would be worth more
than the cleared farms on which they were
burned. To give you an idea of how scarce
money then was I may mention one incident,
An Indian offered the entire carcass of a deer
he had shot for a dollar, but there was not a
dollar between our place and the town-line to
make the purchase.

'Yes, deer were plentiful then. I have seen
five on our farm at one time. Wolves wer<
numerous, too, and once a pack of these brutes
kept the Gamble boys prisoners all night in a
bush where they had been making sugar.

'Two acres of the bush had been thinned out
before we went on our place, but the shanty was
without a door, and a hole in the roof, besides
serving for a chimney, furnished the only sun-
light. There was not a nail or piece of metal
in the whole structure. Some of the cabins in
the neighbourhood were so built that oxen could
haul logs right up to the fireplace.

'The family bed in the first cabin was pro-
vided by boring holes in one of the wall logs,
driving stakes in these supported by posts at the
outer end, and laying on top slabs split from
basswood with the smooth side up. As the fam-
ily increased the bed was widened.

"In the first ten years, although wheat was
sown year after year, few settlers produced
enough for their own bread. The grain would

236 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO

give excellent promise at the start and then the
rust would come and destroy it. After the rust
came the midge, and this continued until we
secured midge-proof wheat. Naturally flour was
a scarce article. When one neighbour secured a
bag or two, this was shared with others, and,
when the flour was gone, it was a case of potatoes
and corn. Even potatoes were scarce at times.
When nuts failed, the squirrels ate our potatoes,
and more than once the seed-cuttings were
destroyed before they had time to sprout. The
flour that was obtained was secured at the cost
of heart-breaking toil. One couple sixty years
of age, carried their grist nine miles on their
backs. A Scotch girl walked eight or ten miles
to our place and carried one hundred pounds
of flour home on her back. Her way led through
an unbroken bush, in which you could see only a
few yards ahead and wherein you had to be
careful of your bearings to avoid getting lost.
When my crops failed, in order to earn money
enough to keep things going, I would help my
neighbours with their building all day and do
my own logging after night fall. At times after
chopping all day, I have made barrels during
half the night."

William Pierce, a son of Moses, gave a touch
of humour to the story of the past. "The first
school I went to," said William, "was held in
a log shanty, twelve by fourteen feet. The
teacher was in the habit of getting drunk, and,
when he was incapacitated, his wife took his
place. At noon hour, on my first day at school,
she locked us in, as she said, to prevent the bears
from getting us, while she went to dinner.

237

Tiring of the confinement before the hour was
up, we determined to get outside. The only
means of exit was a hole in the gable end of the
shanty, and we could not climb up the log wall
from the floor to reach that opening because the
spaces between the logs had been neatly chinked
up. This difficulty was gotten over by one boy
standing on the shoulders of another and so
reaching the top log. Then he pulled the
others up in turn and all slipped out of the
hole in the gable end. In a little while a cry
was raised that the teacher was coming, and then
the boys clambered up the outside like a lot of
bears, slipped in through the hole to their seats,
where they were found quietly in place when
the teacher opened the door."

Linwood Craven, like his neighbour, Moses
Pierce, was one of the originals and, like Mr.
Pierce, could tell of the almost unbelievable
hardships borne by those who blazed the way.
In the case of Mr. Craven, indeed, the hardships
began with his arrival in Canada in 1842. Small-
pox was raging in the country in that year and
Mr. Craven contracted the disease while in
Montreal. " After I recovered I was almost
ready to go back," Mr. Craven told me, "and I
set a stick on end in the street and decided that
if it fell to the east I would go back and if it fell
to the west I would stay. My wife was deter-
mined to remain in any case, and so it was per-
haps fortunate that the stick fell to the west. I
exchanged my sovereigns in the office of Mayor
Beaudiy. The last T saw of the yellow coins
they were laid out in the form of a horse-shoe in
the mayor's window.

238 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

1 'When I settled in McGillivray, there was not
a white settler between our place and Lake
Huron save for a little French community about
Brewster's Mills on the lake shore. There were
numerous Indians, though; and one of these, old
Chief Petanquet, once, while drunk, laid my
jacket open with a knife. Seizing an axe, I said
that I would cut him down if he did it again.
That sobered him and he apologized, at the same
time giving me his knife as a pledge of future
good behaviour. "

The goddess of chance appears to have been
frequently called upon to settle the choice of first
location. Norris and Sallows, two neighbours,
flipped a coin for first choice in Colborne. The
first of the Snells and a neighbour drew lots in
Hullett. Craven said that he would give or take
a quarter with 'Big Jim' Robson for first choice
in McGillivray. "When Robson took the quar-
ter I felt certain that he did not intend to
remain," said Mr. Craven," and sure enough
he never came back after locating.

"When I arranged to put up a shanty,
although it was only eight logs high, neighbours
refused to assist until I provided a gallon of
whiskey. After the shanty was up, it was l short
commons' for us all for some years. For tea
we used burned bread, and peas for making
imitation coffee. When our first child was
born, there was not a pound of flour in the
house, and, when I went to neighbour after
neighbour with a pillow-slip to borrow some, I
found plenty of corn-meal, but no flour. At last
I was able to get a little from Robert Arm-
strong; but this was only enough for the mother

239

of the babe, and I had to do with coin-meal for
six weeks.

"That winter I chopped eight acres, and next
spring my wife and I logged most of it by hand.
I cut the logs in short lengths so that they would
be easier to handle, and cut the trees off close to
the ground so that stumps would not be in
the way of cultivation. It was certainly no light
winter's work, to cut up the trees, many two
and three feet through, growing on eight acres.
After the land was cleared, we had to carry rails
by hand for fencing; but the slowrest work of all
was raking up the leaves.

"When our first grain was harvested, it was
put in a stack near the cabin and there was no
place to thresh it save on the cabin floor. I
carried in one or two sheaves at a time, and in
threshing I had to stand between two of the
split logs forming the roof so that the flail would
not hit the ceiling. Meantime my wife covered
baby with a blanket to prevent the dust from
choking him. When the grain was threshed, we
had to drive six or eight miles to the mill and,
short as that distance was, two days were spent
going and coming. Sometimes we had to go a
second time for the grist at that. Once, when
a party of four of us were going to Brewstcr's
mill, eighteen miles distant, we ate the small
lunch carried with us in going. On arrival at
the mill, Brewster told us that he had no food
either to give or sell. There was, however, a pot
of potatoes boiling on the stove and an Irishman
in the party seized one of the potatoes. That
and a squirrel which we caught had to serve us
until we reached a tavern on our return trip.

240 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"On the same journey I carried an axe on
my shoulder, and a man named Train, following
behind, laid his lower lip open when he stum-
bled against it. Without a word of complaint,
he split a leaf from a plug of tobacco, drew the
cut together, and came on as if nothing had
happened.

"Yes, the rust played havoc with all of us in
the early days of wheat-growing. Had it not
been for the introduction of Egyptian wheat,

SECURELY ANCHORED

CHTTRN, CROCK, BUTTER BOWL
AND LADLE

which proved rust resisting, I believe many
would have starved. We were all hard enough
pressed as it was. One year, when my tax bill
fame due, T could not meet the bill although it
was only t\v<> dollars. In order to raise the
money I took a load of hay to London, twenty-
five miles away, by ox-team, spent two days on

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 241

the way, and sold the load for exactly the
amount of my taxes.

"Our first Methodist preacher was named
Case. He and a mulatto, a Baptist, preached
in the same cabin. The Methodist had no horse;
even if he had possessed one he could not have
taken it over the roads as they then were, and
so he walked to his several appointments.'*

"When my father settled on lot twenty-seven
on the seventh of Hullett, he was the 'farthest
north' white man in Western Ontario," James
Snell told me. "The upper part of Huron and
the whole of Bruce were covered by an unbroken
forest. Father's worldly goods consisted of the
axe on his shoulder and a quarter in his pocket.

"Even two years later than that, when he
married, it was often potatoes and cabbage for
meals one day, varied by cabbage and potatoes
the next. One neighbour was without flour for
two weeks. Once, when an attempt was made to
bring flour overland by way of Clinton, the sup-
ply was all gobbled up before Clinton was passed.
A neighbour carried half a barrel of flour on his
back from Clinton to his own home, a distance
of three miles. William Young, of Carlow,
spent his first weeks in the shelter of a tree ; and
flat stones, taken from the bed of a creek, formed
the fireplace in which his food, mostly game and
fish, was cooked. One day, father, on his way
home, met a bear at a point where the
road was very narrow. Father stepped on one
side, the bear responded by stepping to the
other, and so each passed on his way — an
exhibition of good manners of which father fre-
quently expressed his warmest appreciation.

242 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"The land in our township was bought at
from three to twelve dollars per acre, depending
on the quality of the timber. That was merely
the first cost. To clear ten acres of black ash
swamp on our farm cost twenty-five dollars per
acre; and after that there was the stumping,
stoning, fencing, draining, and building. They
tell us Canadians are a great people. They
should be. They are the descendants of the
greatest stock the world ever produced. None
but men of strong arms and brave hearts could
have accomplished the work that was accom-
plished by the pioneers of Old Ontario. ' '

How well that work was accomplished and
to what extent the children of these pioneers
were worthy of their ancestors, is shown in one
case by the history of the Snell farm itself. A
little over half a century after the first tree was
cut on the farm, stock produced there captured
twenty-one prizes, eleven of these firsts, at the
Chicago World's Fair, the winnings being made
in open competition with communities that had
three centuries of civilization behind them.

"My father moved to Huron in 1835," said
Henry Morris, another Colborne township
pioneer. "At that time there were only three
houses in Goderich. In one of these, a log
shanty, father spent his first night with a pile
of shavings for a bed. Father and his brother
chose as their location in Colborne, lots six and
seven on the ninth, tossing a copper for first
choice. ' '

Mr. Morris told an interesting story of the
clock his father took with him to the township,
which clock was still keeping perfect time when

UP BEUCE AND HURON WAY 243

I talked with him sixty-five years later. "The
clock was made in Germany," said Mr. Morris,
"and belonged to a man for whom father
worked near Hamilton. It had been sent to a
watchmaker's for repairs and father was told
that he could have it by paying the charges.
The offer was accepted, and in the next sixty-
five years it was repaired only once."

PACKING GOODS AT SEVEN

"Our family arrived at Kincardine township
at three o'clock in the afternoon of a March day
in 1851, and our first task was to clear about five
feet of snow out of the shanty that was waiting
for us. This shanty had been built by my brother
in the previous autumn; but the one door had
not been hung, or the walls chinked up, which
accounted for the accumulation of snow.
Although I was only seven at the time, my task
was to assist the other children in gathering
moss to block the spaces between the logs form-
ing the walls of the shanty. Next I was sent to
cut hemlock boughs, and these, spread on the
earthern floor and covered with blankets, formed
our bed. Another blanket closed the doorway."
Thus Neil McBougall began his story.

"Next day we put in one window and built a
chimney formed of sticks and puddled clay.
Fire in the open hearth soon baked this clay as
hard as brick. A permanent door was made of
lumber brought with us, but basswood logs were
split to form the floor. A space was left before
the fireplace and this was afterwards filled in
with cobble-stones.

244 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"Our family, coming originally from Scotland,
had spent some time in Brock township. The
journey from Brock to Kincardine was made in
a sleigh by way of the lower end of Lake Simcoe,
Orangeville, and the town of Durham. At
Durham, we were detained by a storm for three
days, sleeping meantime on the floor of a shanty
belonging to a man named Hunter. At the town
of Kincardine, or what is now the town, the
sleigh was left behind and the remaining ten
miles made on foot, each one of the party carry-
ing some of the household effects. My share,
although, as I said, I was but seven years of age,
consisted of the tea-kettle, tea-pot, and a blan-
ket. An older brother carried the family table.
Not a tree was chopped along that ten miles and
the snow was from four to five feet deep in
the woods.

"In the previous fall, my brothers had left a
yoke of oxen with a man at Priceville, who
promised to keep them over winter for their
work. The keeping was so badly done that
when we picked them up on our way, one gave
out on the road and afterwards died and the
other was kept alive only by feeding it scones;
we had no hay.

"Owing to the crippling of our ox-team, we
had to do our spring logging by hand. We
possessed only an acre of clearing that spring,
but next fall that acre was literally covered with
nice mealy potatoes. During the summer, John
McPhail, a neighbour, purchased another ox and
that made a yoke for our joint use, the first ox-
team in the section. We bought a cow, too, and
during the next winter the cattle were main-

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 245

tained on a few turnips, a little oats, and the
browse in the bush. The cattle seemed to know
that meal time was coming when they saw the
men start for the bush with axes, and they fol-
lowed after. A tree was no sooner down than
the animals were feasting on the juicy sprouts
of the top. They actually came out fat in
the spring.

4 'At the beginning, all our supplies were
packed from Kincardine, ten miles away, and it
took two bushels of wheat to buy a pound of
tea. With boots at seven dollars per pair, you
will not be surprised .when I tell you that some
went barefooted in winter. When cattle were
killed, we took the skin from the bend at the
knee to make moccasins. Sometimes, owing to
rough weather, supplies of flour at Kincardine
became exhausted, and then the settlers' food
was limited to potatoes and fish. Occasionally,
in winter, the fish gave out, too ; and then it was
potatoes and cow-cabbage. Some families lived
for weeks at a time on these, with a little
milk and butter added. The cattle fed on cow-
cabbage, too. These plants grew to a height of
about two and a half feet, and cattle would eat
all they could hold in half an hour. At times,
when we could not get our wheat ground we
boiled it whole for food.

"The Rev. William Frazer, a Baptist, who
had a small grist-mill, was a missionary as well
as a miller. For twenty-five years he preached
in the little community, walking eight or nine
miles to keep appointments, which I never knew
him to miss, rain or shine, winter or summer;
and he never took a dollar in pay for this ser-

246

vice. He served for a time as inspector of
schools in addition to his other work.

" There was not a doctor within sixty miles;
still I never knew of a death in child-birth. Cuts
were common when the bush was being cleared,
and were treated with home-made salves."

"Two or three families were dependent on
one cow for their milk in the early years," said
Charles McDougall, an older brother of Neil.
"In the first two years, we never once tasted
meat, and our tea was made by using burned
bread crumbs. Scones were fashioned 011 a
rough board split from a basswood log. People
in the township of Bruce, to the north of us,
were still worse off. I have seen them drive
past our place with oxen drawing home-made
wooden carts that frequently got stuck in the
mud holes. The people of that township, like
ourselves, had to go to Kincardine for their sup-
plies; but in their case the journey extended
over two or three days."

A typical incident of pioneer days in Bruce
County was mentioned by Mr. McDougall. In
a year of scarcity three men started for Ash-
field, two townships away, to secure potatoes.
Growing hungry by the way they stopped at a
cabin to ask for food.

"I have only enough in the house to make
supper for the children," answered the woman
who came to the door.

"Then we cannot take that," said the men.

"But you will," was the instant response.
"My husband has gone off for flour, which he
will surely get, and the children can wait until
he returns. Come in and eat."

247

Another touching story of a father's devotion
.was told by Mr. McDougall.

" Among the first arrivals in Bruce were six
families from Tyre, Scotland," said he. "When
the party arrived at Walkerton, the nine-year-
old daughter of Donald McKinnon became ill
and the father paused in his journey to nurse
his sick child, while the other members of the
party pressed on to Kincardine. After the
child partially recovered, the father took her on
his back and started after the others, wading
the Saugeen River on the way. But the child
died almost as soon as Kincardine was reached,
and her body was the first one laid in the
old cemetery where the Presbyterian Church
now stands. Grief and the hardships of the
trip proved too much for the father, and he also
succumbed shortly afterwards."

One can almost believe that, in the days which
followed, others in the party envied the two who
had fallen at the threshold of the new settle-
ment, Home and kindred were beyond the sea,
all was new and strange, and before the scanty
means of livelihood brought from beyond the
seas could be added to by production in the new
home giant trees had to be cleared away by
men who did not know how to wield an axe.

Is IT WORTH WHILE?

"Is it worth while?" The question was asked
by Peter Clark of the township of Culross
between sixty and seventy years ago. It is no
wonder Mr. Clark thus queried. It was the
depth of winter. The habitation occupied was a

248 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

log shanty twelve feet by sixteen feet, the
spaces between the logs being filled with mud
plaster. The only company he had was W. H.
Campbell, and there was not then a single house
in Teeswater. The site of Wingham was still
part of the original forest; Lucknow was not
even a cross-roads; and all about was un-
broken bush.

Mr. Clark's experiences before reaching
Bruce were also such as to produce a feeling
of pessimism. From London to Clinton he and
his companion, Campbell, had tramped forty-
eight miles over mud roads in one day in the
previous autumn. Clinton to Goderich, over
still worse roads, was covered in a second day.
Goderich to Lucknow, over country almost with-
out roads, occupied the third day, and, on the
fourth, the site of Teeswater was reached over
blazed trails. There the night was spent in the
woods. This was on the ninth of September,
and from that time until October, when their
rude cabin was finished, the forest furnished the
only shelter Mr. Clark and his companion had.
Ts it any wonder that the companions asked
themselves if there would be any roads, neigh-
bours, schools, churches and the other necessities
and comforts incident to civilization? It is not
surprising that for a time, Mr. Clark decided it
was not worth while ; and, after distributing his
immediate belongings among his nearest neigh-
bours, he started for Goderich to visit an old
schoolmate, H. D. Cameron, then principal of
the school in that town. At Mr. Cameron's
solicitations Mr. Clark tried for a teacher's
certificate, and, passing the necessary examina-

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAV 249

tion, secured a school at Wawanosh. That was
the turn of the tide for him. While teaching
at Wawanosh, he visited his farm in Culross
often enough to hold it under the conditions of
the grant. Later on he taught the first school in
Teeswater, but eventually settled down on
his farm.

It was, however, a long and dreary wait for
the things that came later. "In the beginning,"
Mr. Clark said, "I more than once packed one
hundred pounds of wheat on my back to the
nearest grist-mill, and that mill was thirteen
miles away. Once, after assisting at a raising
two miles from my farm, I lost the blazed trail
in the woods while going home in the dark and
lay down to spend the night in the bush. Awak-
ened by the howling of wolves, I started a fire
to frighten the animals off and then lay down
and slept on until morning.

"My greatest scare, though, occurred in that
first fall. We had plenty of game, but were
often down to our last crust of bread. Campbell
on one of these occasions decided to go to
Riverdale for flour and other provisions. He
started on a Monday expecting to return next
day, but when he did not get back on Wednes-
day nor even on Thursday I fairly shook with
terror. I feared that Campbell had been
drowned, and that I would find it impossible to
give a satisfactory explanation of his disappear-
ance. In imagination I could even see the sheriff
and the hangman's noose; but at last I heard a
great splashing down the river, and in a short
time Campbell himself appeared."

While almost all the pioneers whom I inter-

250 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

viewed, told of the spirit of mutual helpfulness
that prevailed in the early days, there were
occasional references to displays of meanness
and selfishness. One incident of this nature
occurred when two travellers were going south
on the road leading from Dufferin to the front.
One traveller was on foot and one in a sleigh.
As the latter caught up to the pedestrian a
request for a ride was curtly refused. The one
on foot, in the then state of the roads, was able
to travel as fast as the one in the sleigh, and as
the parties passed and repassed each other
repeated requests for a lift, or even for the
privilege of hanging on behind, were denied.
But just retribution was not long delayed. Both
travellers reached the same tavern as night came
on. The one on foot was known there; the man
driving was unknown. The footsore pilgrim told
his tale, and the churl with the team was
promptly cast into the outer darkness where
he belonged.

Mr. Clark told of a somewhat similar exper-
ience. "On the way back from the distant mill,
with packs of flour on their shoulders, the first
settlers naturally got hungry by the way," said
Mr. Clark. "On some occasions, on dropping
into a wayside cabin, even the privilege of mak-
ing scones from their own flour was refused.
But this was a rare exception and was more
than over-balanced by the open-hearted hos-
pitality in other quarters. John McBain and his
wife were a particularly generous couple. No
traveller was ever permitted to pass their door
while hungry, and a bed was always at the dis-
posal of one who appeared as darkness

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 251

approached. Many of the Culross pioneers
had reason to bless the McBains.

" Another of the whole-hearted ones was
Samuel Woods. In their second year some of
the settlers did not have even potatoes. Samuel,
whose home was in a hollow log, had not so very
many himself, but he was always ready to share
up with others. Whenever a hungry one came
along, Sam just pointed to the potato patch and
told the visitor to help himself."

The question, "Is it worth while'?" which Mr.
Clark asked himself shortly after the middle of
the last century was well answered before that
century ended. Well-tilled fields had then suc-
ceeded the tangle of the forest; stone and brick
residences had displaced the log shanties; and
a community had been built up in which the
homely virtues of the pioneer period did not
disappear with the coming of prosperity.

Cow- CABBAGE FOB FOOD

"I moved into Kinloss in the same year — 1854
—that Mr. Clark moved into Culross," said Mr.
Corrigan a friend of Mr. Clark. "In one
respect a more unfortunate time could not have
been selected for making the venture. The
Russian war had forced wheat up to two dollars
and a quarter per bushel and our people had not
yet begun to produce wheat. It had forced pork
up to ten and twelve dollars per hundred weight
and the settlers were buyers, not sellers, of
pork. As few of them had more than fifty
dollars to start on, you can imagine how far
their available funds went in the purchase of

252 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

necessary food. As a matter of fact many were
compelled to subsist for weeks on cow-cabbage,
a vegetable that then grew wild in the woods.
This cabbage was not unlike lettuce, and boiled
with pork was a real luxury ; but few had money
to buy the pork.

"Then, a year or two later, just when our
people were beginning to get on their feet, and
wheat in the newly made clearing was seemingly
about to yield an abundant harvest, one night's
frost blighted the whole prospect. Not a bushel
of wheat was harvested in the settlement
that year.

"The hardest blow of all, however, was sus-
tained through an act of the authorities. The
Government of Sandfield Macdonald had aided
the people with loans of money and seed in the
year when frost came, and in 1868-69 the Govern-
ment ordered that the interest, which had been
allowed to accumulate while people were trying
to regain their feet, as well as the principal, must
all be paid off at once. It was reported, whether
truly or not, that the Government was impelled
to this action by financial interests in Toronto,
which had just received large sums of Old Coun-
try money to be loaned. In any case the people
of Bruce rushed to these money-lenders for
funds to meet the demands made upon them.
Loans obtained from these lenders were repay-
able in annual instalments and the interest
figured out at about twelve and one half per
cent. Scores of those who had struggled
through the trials of the pioneer period, who had
borne up even in the year when their wheat
\vas destroyed by frost, now with old age

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 253

approaching went down beneath the load of the
mortgage. They were forced to sell their
belongings and move to the United States.
'Only for the mortgages we could have pulled
through/ was their bitter cry. It was a cruel
blow, and Canada lost many good citizens at
that time.

"In one respect we were favoured," continued
Mr. Corrigan with a smile. "Most of those who
settled in Kinloss went there in the prime of
life. There were few children to educate or aged
to care for. But for this I do not know how any
would have pulled through. Death came occa-
sionally, even to a community in which the death
rate was low because of the ages of those
composing it, and in the absence of regular
cemeteries, most of those who died were buried
on the farms their labour had been helping to
create. One such burial-place was located on
one of my own farms. Facilities for marriage
were as scarce as facilities for burial. When my
wife and I were married we had to go to Owen
Sound for the purpose, and we spent two days
going and a like time returning.

"The infrequency of religious services also
bore heavily on the pioneers. This hardship
was felt with especial severity by the Roman
Catholics, who were fewer in numbers than the
Protestants. Our first priest had his head-
quarters in Owen Sound. He was able to visit
us only once a year, and the entire journey from
Owen Sound was made on foot.

1 ' Our first wheat was cleaned either by sifting
it through a screen or placing it on a sheet and
then shaking the sheet so as to throw the grain

254

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

up in the air and allow the wind to carry off the
chaff. When fanning-mills came in, they were
taken from farm to farm as threshing outfits
are now."

The Corrigans had an easier time of it in
Bruce than most of those who pioneered in that
county, because before going there, they had
pioneered in Hastings and had accumulated
twenty-three or twenty-four hundred dollars—
quite a fortune for that day.

"But we had our share
of it when I was a lad in
Hastings/' Mr. Corrigan
concluded. ' * I have heard
my father say that he had
to tramp twenty-five miles
to buy a pipe, and that
when he first settled in
Hastings his worldly pos-
sessions consisted of an
axe, a ham, and a five dol-
lar gold-piece. We moved
from Hastings to Kinloss
in a covered wagon, a
month being spent on the
way. We had to stop over
for two weeks at Cooks-

ville owing to one of our horses having been
injured by a kick, and it was while there that I
had my first sight of one of the first great
labour-savers; a mowing-machine.

I believe ours was the first wagon to enter
Kinloss; and that wagon, which had a canvas
cover, formed our habitation until a shanty was
erected."

CLEANING GRAIN

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 255

To the late John S. McDonald, one of the most
thoroughly upright men who ever sat in the
Legislature of Ontario, I was indebted for some
reminiscences of early days near Ripley.

Mr. McDonald came from Ayrshire in 1854.
After spending some fifteen months in Ancaster,
he determined to make a new home in the
township of Kincardine. His route lay through
Gait, Stratford, and Goderich, and eight
days were spent in making the journey with
horse and ox-teams. "Gait," Mr. McDonald
said, "was then a small village; but Stratford,
which had lately been swept by fire, held a
thousand people, while Goderich boasted of
nearly two thousand inhabitants. From Gait to
Goderich the road was all mud or corduroy, and
it was with difficulty Mrs. McDonald held her
seat in the wagon as it bumped over the roughly
laid logs.

"The slow rate at which the journey was
made may be illustrated by one incident. When
a short distance on our way, I inadvertently left
my watch at Black Creek and did not notice the
loss until four miles further on. I at once
started back on foot to recover the time-piece,
the remainder of the family meantime continu-
ing northwards. After I had secured my watch,
the stage carrying the mail came along, and
Imping to join my family more quickly by this
means, I jumped on board. I soon saw, how-
ever, that I could walk faster than the stage
was being driven, and so jumped off again and

256 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

resumed walking, catching up with the others
on reaching Hunter's Corners, as Seaforth
was then called.

'The country was fairly well-settled as far as
Stratford; but from that place to Goderich the
clearings were small, and the townships of
Kinloss, Ashfield, Huron, and Kincardine, while
mostly taken up, were still covered with forest.
From Belfast to our new home, a distance of
eighteen miles, there was no roadway whatever,
the only guide to the lot being a blaze left by
surveyors; and over the last twelve miles of
that blazed trail Mrs. McDonald carried an
infant in her arms.

"It was fall when we reached our home in the
bush and the first winter was spent in making
a clearing. In spring, after burning the slash
and putting in a crop, I tramped all the way
back to Ancaster to earn enough to see the
family through the following winter, Mrs.
McDonald and the children meantime spending
three weary months with the nearest neighbour.

"In the fall, with my cradle on my back
(there were no self-binders in those days), I
tramped home to harvest our own little crop and
prepare for winter. The purchase of groceries
necessitated a walk of eight miles each way.
The Harris mill, twenty-two miles distant, was
the nearest point at which we could obtain flour,
and that meant two days in going and coming.

"For four successive years I spent the winters
in chopping, the springs in burning and seeding,
and the summers in working for other farmers
at 'the front.' Then it seemed as if at last I
could venture to put in the whole year at home

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 257

with my family. I had seven acres in wheat
and some other crops as well, and it looked to
me like the dawn of prosperity. But, just as
the wheat was ripening, the whole prospect was
blighted in a single night. Frost came with the
darkness, and wheat, potatoes, and all else went
down in one common ruin.

''Without wheat to harvest, there was no use
in remaining home any longer; and so once
more the weary pilgrimage to the front was
undertaken and fall and winter were spent in
earning money, not only to carry the family
through the winter but to buy seed for the fol-
lowing spring. The set-back left us very nearly
where we had started, and it was eight long years
after our first winter in the bush before I was
able to spend all my time on our own farm.
Even after that there was constant danger of
frost and sometimes more or less severe loss
was sustained. Indeed, it was not until the
bush fires of the 'sixties burned off the black
muck on the surface that June frosts ceased to
be a source of worry.

"It was not alone the lack of knowledge of
how to use the woodman's axe that was against
the emigrants from Scotland when they settled
in the forest then covering Huron and Bruce,"
continued Mr. McDonald. "Many of the new-
comers were from the Island of Lewis and had
been fishermen in the old land. As fishermen
their periods of labour had been governed by the
weather. When nature favoured, it had been
long periods of arduous toil for them, while with
foul weather came complete cessation from
labour. The habits these fishermen had inner-

258 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ited from their forefathers they brought with
them to the Canadian bush. During inclement
periods when others were preparing for the fine
days to come, these would be resting. That, of
course, militated against success under the
changed conditions prevailing here. It was mar-
vellous, though, what these men could endure. I
remember one of them carrying a hundred-
weight of flour in a barrel on his back from
Kincardine. He might just as well have carried
it in a bag, but he put it in a barrel because the
barrel was given him. That awkward load he
carried for fourteen miles through the bush
simply to add a wooden barrel to his store. At
the end of the journey, when asked if he was
tired, he said: 'No, but she'll be a little pit sore
apoot the back.'

Mr. McDonald in describing his experiences
in cleaning wheat, said: "We used a 'wecht'
for that purpose. This was a sheep-skin with the
wool removed. The skin was tacked to a
wooden rim, something like the end of a drum,
but the skin was slack, not tight. We used this
as a scoop to lift the grain from the bin
and then allowed the grain to fall on a sheet
.laid on the ground, the wind blowing off the
chaff as the grain fell. One day, when we were
about out of flour, there was no wind. When a
breeze came up with the sunset, I began cleaning
and kept at the work, by the light of the moon,
until two in the morning. This job followed a
full day's threshing with the flail; and before
daylight next morning I was off with my grist
to the Harris mill, twenty miles away.

"All the settlers from our section took their

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 259

grain to that mill. The grist was carried on
jumpers and usually only two or three bags
were taken at a time. One day was spent in
going to the mill, the grain was ground at night
and the return journey made next day.

"When we took our grist to the mill," Mr.
McDonald went on, ' ' we spent the night at a log
tavern while waiting for it to be ground. We
climbed a ladder in going upstairs to bed, and,
when in bed, the roof was just above our heads.
In the morning the ceiling was coated with frost
where the cold air had come in contact with the
warm air exhaled from the men's lungs. Our
cow-hide boots, in which we tramped through
slush in going to the mill, would also be found
frozen as hard as bricks, and we had to thaw
them at the stove before we could put them on."

Patrick Cummings, when warden of the
County of Bruce, told me the following story
of "the religious mill." "The 'religious mill'
was the Shantz mill at Port Elgin, operated by
a man named Leader. The miller refused to run
a minute after twrelve o'clock on Saturday night.
On one occasion, during a period of special
pressure, a helper in the mill proposed to
run right through the last night in the week
in order to catch up. A man who happened
to be present at the time, for a joke on the
helper, put some wet grain in the hopper as
the clock was nearing the midnight hour.
Exactly on the stroke of twelve the wet grain
struck the stones and the mill stopped dead.

" 'I told you,' said the joker, 'this was a
religious mill and would not, under any
circumstances, run on Sunday. '

260 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

The miller, his latent superstition aroused,
was struck with awe and never after that did
he even think of attempting to run the mill
on Sundays.

A BOAT BUILT AT KINCARDINE

The family of Hugh Murray, of Underwood,
moved into Bruce in the " famine year." "It
was not the freezing of the wheat alone that
caused suffering among the people," said Mr.
Murray. "The grasshoppers ate the pea crop
and squirrels scooped out the potatoes, leaving
nothing but empty shells. If it had not been
for the corn and wheat supplied by the Govern-
ment, I do not know what the settlers of that
day would have done.

"Then, when we began to produce again we
were handicapped by the lack of a market. It
was a godsend to the new settlement when G. H.
Coulthard, from near Manilla, started business
in our section. He bought anything the settlers
had to sell, but his chief service to the com-
munity was in establishing a market for ashes
and cord-wood. What we received for these
products seemed like 'found money.'

"But people worked for that 'found money,'
all right," added Norman Robertson, who at
the time this story was told was County
Treasurer of Bruce. "I have seen as many as
twenty Highland women, in single fyle, on the
way to the ashery, each carrying a two" bushel
bag of ashes from the burned fallows. These
loads were carried as much as six or eight miles
and the ashes were sold on delivery at two-

2fil

pence per bushel, while cord- wood went at
seventy-five cents to one dollar per cord."

In the summer season, the River Saugecn v^is
made use of by a number of Bruce pioneers in
reaching the interior of the southern parts o
that county. Other pioneers, landing at South-
ampton from lake vessels, made their way up
the river in canoes. "The current was too
strong to paddle against," Thomas Bryce of
Dumblane told me, ' ' and so one man had to walk
along the shore and pull the canoe with a
rope while another held the craft off the land
with a pole. Many went up as far as Paisley, a
distance of fifteen miles, in this way. My people
came in the other way. Striking the river at
Walkerton we built a raft, placed our supplies on
it, and floated twenty-one miles down stream to
our destination. Several other families did the
same. Each family built its own raft, and when
the journey was completed, the raft was left to
float at will on down the river."

Mr. and Mrs. Cook were of those who came in
by way of Southampton in 1851, and Mrs. Cook
had with her four children, aged from one to
eight. "Whatever will you do with these poor
little chicks up here?" was the first greeting
she received on landing. It is no wonder
solicitude for the children was expressed. "The
shanty to which we went had a bark roof and
this roof leaked so badly that when it rained
my husband had to hold an umbrella over us
when we were in bed," said Mrs. Cook. "The
floors were made of such lumber as drifted
ashore from passing vessels. Once, when the
children were ill, my husband went to Port

262 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Elgin, five miles away, to get a little milk for
them. On another occasion a friend brought in
a chicken all the way from Owen Sound, but
unfortunately the flesh spoiled with the heat
during the journey and could not be used."

Captain McLeod, of Kincardine, in speaking
of those pioneers who came in by way of Lake
Huron, said that the passenger rate from
Goderich to Kincardine was fifty cents and the
freight rate on goods from Windsor to Kin-
cardine six dollars per ton. The captain and his
brother built the first vessel put together at
Kincardine, a little craft of eight or ten tons.

"We cut the planks for that craft with a
whip-saw," the captain told me. "I bought the
whip-saw in Goderich for five dollars and car-
ried or trailed it all the way to Kincardine. A
platform was built on the side of a bank and
supported by posts. Beneath this platform was
a pit six or seven feet deep, and, when sawing,
my brother stood in the pit while he pulled
down on the saw, and I stood above to pull up.
After finishing our boat, we cut all the boards
for flooring, roof, gable ends, and windows for
a house eighteen feet by twenty-four and got
a yoke of nine-year-old oxen for our pay. It
was a fair day's work to cut from two hundred
and fifty to three hundred feet of lumber in a
day with a whip-saw, but some days, when
everything was running well, we got up to
four hundred."

John McNab, a son of the first Crown Lands
Agent for Bruce, gave a vivid description of
three scenes in the early history of the section.

"In my youth," said Mr. McNab, "the

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY

263

county ended at Southampton on the north, the
peninsula above that still being in the hands
of the Indians. Once a year Captain Anderson
came up from Toronto to distribute annuity
money among these Indians. His route was by
rail to Collingwood, boat to Owen Sound, and
from Owen Sound to Southampton with Indians

•WHIP- SAW

"Beneath the platform was a pit six or seven feet deep,
and, when sawing, my brother stood in the pit while he
pulled down on the saw, and I stood above to pull up. ' '

who earned his luggage. I have seen as many
as nine hundred of the red men gathered to
meet the captain and receive their annuities,
while the harbour was dotted with small craft,
owned by traders waiting to exchange their
goods for the money the Indians were to receive.
" Later on, when the Indians surrendered

264 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

their lands, these were put up for sale, buyers
coming from Toronto, and equally distant
points. In the excitement of the auction some
wild bidding occurred, the offers in many cases
being more than the land was worth. Some
of the purchases were afterwards thrown back
on the hands of the Government and in other
cases a reduction in price was made.

"The crowd that attended the auction of the
lands in the peninsula was well nigh paralleled
by a previous rush. Several townships were
opened for sale in South Bruce in 1854, and in
September of that year two thousand people
came into Southampton. They slept in camps
outside the village; and at night their blazing
camp fires were like those of a besieging army.
By day the gathering was like a congress of
nations. Highlanders, Englishmen, and Ger-
mans were intermingled; and the Gaelic, Eng-
lish, and German tongues were heard in the
different groups. A remarkable thing, both in
connection with this gathering and the annual
payment to Indians at an earlier date, was that
although 011 both occasions whiskey was every-
where, I did not hear of a single quarrel.

"Another picturesque scene occurred in the
spring of the year when the Indians came down
from Manitoulin to sell their maple sugar. The
journey was made in mackinaws, — open boats
with a schooner rig; and the sugar was carried in
mococks, — containers made of birch bark each
holding from twenty to thirty pounds. I am told
that this sugar eventually found its way to a
Montreal refinery, from which it emerged at
last as ordinary commercial brown sugar.

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY 265

"After the incoming settlers had located their
lands, they frequently tramped forty or fifty
miles in order to make their payments at the
Crown Land office in Southampton. Not a little
of the money used in making payments was
English gold, and this was usually carried in
belts next the person. Those carrying their
money in this way would, on arrival, go into a
room off the office, strip, remove their belts and
then come back to the office and pay over
their money."

A story very similar to that told by Mr.
McDonald was the one given me about the
same time by A. Livingstone, who was then
living a little west of the town of Durham, in
the neighbouring county of Grey. When Mr.
Livingstone moved to his new home from
Toronto in the late 'fifties, it was necessary to
make the journey in winter because roads were
impassable in summer. "Orangeville at that
time consisted of a store, one of two taverns,
and a few houses," said Mr. Livingstone.
'There was a fair road from Orangeville to
Durham, but from the latter place there was
nothing but a 'blaze' to mark the road to the
lot I had selected, four miles west. Our nearest
neighbour was three miles off in the bush; and,
although a little milling was then done in
Durham, most of the wheat grown in our town-
ship was taken to Guelph, fifty miles away, to
be ground.

'The first spring after our arrival, we planted
potatoes in the little clearing made during
winter, and then I and my two brothers
walked down to Vaughan to earn money with

266

which to buy supplies for the following winter.
It took us three days to cover the distance. In
the second spring, we had nearly fifteen acres
ready for crop, and after putting this in oats,
barley, and potatoes we once more proceeded
south to spend the summer in Vaughan. This
practice continued for three or four years, but
after that we were able to spend all our time
at home."

Hardships were not, however, at an end even
then. Durham Road, now one of the finest high-
ways in the province, was at that time mud
and corduroy. "In the spring," said Mrs.
Brigham, a neighbour of the Livingstones, "the
logs were frequently afloat in the water, and in
passing over a place like that we had to jump
from one log to another. There was no bridge
over the Saugeen west of Durham, but a tree
which had fallen across the stream afforded a
reasonably safe passage for people on foot."
The first team of horses was taken in by William
Hopps, the year after the Livingstones arrived.
For the first few years, however, some of the
settlers did not even have oxen, and all the
operations on bush farms, from logging to har-
vesting, were performed by hand.

"In the beginning, too," Mr. Livingstone
said, "our buying and selling was all done
locally, incoming settlers providing a market
for the surplus produced by those who had gone
in ahead. Where marketing was confined to
such narrow limits, there was bound to be a glut
at one time with a shortage at another. When
there was a surplus our produce went for a song;
when there was scarcity famine prices prevailed.

UP BRUCE AND HURON WAV

267

One summer when flour went up to nine
and ten dollars per barrel, people who could not
pay the price were obliged to use corn-meal.
Even corn-meal was almost beyond the reach of
those, who, to buy food, worked on the road at
seventy-five cents per day and boarded them-
selves. Many, indeed, were obliged to mortgage
their farms and all their belongings. In not a
few cases mortgages were foreclosed and fam-
ilies after years of toil were forced to move
away.

l> mKx6X'mmm\

WAX SEALS OF CROWNLAND DEEDS

268 THE PIONEERS! OF OLD ONTARIO

WASHING THE BLANKETS

: Blankets were taken to the creek, put in tubs of water and
trodden upon until they were clean."

FIFTH GENERATION ON THE SAME HOMESTEAD

One of the all too few cases in which descen-
dants of those who cleared the forest still remain
on the old homestead, is found on lot thirty-one
on the third of Uxbridge. There J. W. Widdi-
field, M.P.P., represents the fifth generation on
land granted by the Crown in 1806. Even here,
however, possession has not descended along the
male line, the first owner of the place having
been Charles Chapman, the great-great-grand-
father of Mr. Widdifield on the maternal side.

Charles Chapman left Bucks County, Penn-
sylvania, in the first decade of the last century.
He traversed the comparative wilderness of
Western Pennsylvania and New York, crossed
the Niagara River, and, following the Hamilton-
Queenston highway, Dundas Road, and Yonge
Street, finally passed over the old " Uxbridge
Trail," to lay the foundation of a new home
near the banks of a stream in the midst of
the forest primeval then covering Uxbridge
township.

Mr. Chapman was a member of one of the
many families of Quakers who came from the
New England States to what was then Upper
Canada and whose descendants are found in
Whitchurch, Uxbridge, Markham, Pickering,
and neighbouring townships to-day. These fam-

269

270 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ilies included the Lundys, James, Kesters,
Goulds, Doans, Wilsons, Haines, and Widdi-
fields. The Widdifields came from New Jersey,
but the majority of the others were from
Pennsylvania.

Mr. J. W. Widdifield, descended from the
Chapmans on one side and the Widdifields on
the other, holds as the most prized among his
collection of relics of the early days the original
deed granted to his great-great-grandfather
Chapman. And a quaint document it is, the wax
seal being almost as large as a saucer; and the
document itself, written on parchment, is as
legible as the day on which it was signed by
Alexander Grant, President and Administrator
of the Government of Upper Canada, and Peter
Russell.

The original deed was for two hundred acres,
and in addition to the land, it covered, "all woods
and waters thereon," and "all mines of gold and
silver." But there were two notable reserva-
tions. All the white pine then growing on the
place, and all of the same timber that might
thereafter grow thereon, was reserved for King
George III. and his descendants. The other
reservation provided that in case the land was
disposed of by sale, will, or otherwise, the new
owner must within twelve months thereafter
take the required "oath or affirmation of
allegiance, etc.," otherwise the grant was to be
null and void and the property was to be
vested in the Crown as if never granted.

The first of these reservations at least lias a
peculiar interest for Mr. T. B. Prankish, of
Toronto, an uncle of the Mr. Widdifield of

FROM FATHER TO SON 271

to-day, and owner of half the original two
hundred acres, because he is one of the few men
in Ontario who has done real forestry work on
his own farm. Mr. Prankish has planted some
thousands of pine trees on his holding. Many
of these young pines are Scotch and therefore
exempt from claim by the Crown. But many
are of the white variety and thus come within
the reservation noted. Mr. Frankish has, there-
fore, performed a very special service for the
King as well as his country by his planting
activities.

There is, apparently, no record in the deed of
any monetary payment to the Crown for the
land allotted, but the deed did require the
erection thereon of "a good and sufficient dwell-
ing " and residence for the space of at least
one year.

There is on the Widdifield homestead another
memorial of the early days. This is part of the
old "Uxbridge Trail "that once wound across
lots from where the town of Uxbridge now
stands to Yonge Street — the weary road that
early settlers followed with ox-teams on their
way to and from market in Toronto. This
trail to-day forms part of a lane leading from
the Widdifield residence to a pond that, up
to a few years ago, furnished a reservoir of
power for one of the pioneer saw-mills of
the district.

There is an interesting story connected with
this old mill. "At one time," said Mr. Widdi-
field, "there were thirteen cottages surrounding
the mill site and the occupants of these cottages
worked in three eight-hour shifts in the mill,

272 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

that ran day and night for six days in the week.
Most of the cottagers owned their homes, but
as the mill business fell off the cottagers dis-
appeared and the property reverted back into
the hands of the family. ' '

To-day, not a cottage is left on the site. Some
collapsed and disappeared; others were removed
elsewhere to serve for other purposes; and of
the mill itself all that remains is part of the roof
lying prone on the land, and part of the dam
at the mill site. At the other end of the dam
there can still be seen part of the log bridge
that formed a crossing-place on the Uxbridge
trail.

The pond itself is still twenty feet deep in
places, but the creek flowing from it is little
more than a reminder of what it once was.
"During my father's lifetime," said Mr.
Widdifield, "the creek dwindled to one-third
the volume it had when my father first knew
it." The stream and pond are on the Fraiikish
side of the two hundred acres and Mr. Frankish
has turned these into a fishing preserve.

Among the other memorials of the early days
in Mr. Widdifield 's possession is the minute and
account book of the first school in the neighbour-
hood." The school building was erected just-
across the way from the Widdifield home. This
school was built in the fall of 1853, and the box
stove used in it cost four pounds Halifax
currency. Three elbows cost fifteen shillings
and three-pence; and fifteen length of pipe, ten-
pence each. One hundred and twenty cut nails
were bought at one pound and five shillings. The
first teacher, Rachel James, holder of a third-

FROM FATHER TO SON 273

class certificate, was engaged at the magnifi-
cent salary of two pounds, twelve shillings and
six-pence per month for six months, the salary
to be paid at the expiration of each month. But
the high cost of living soon began to make itself
felt even in those days; and Maria Bently, the
second teacher, was paid two pounds and fifteen
shillings for the first three months, three pounds
for the next three months, and three pounds and
five shillings for the last six months. In 1854
Sarah Jane Blanding was taken on at nineteen
pounds and ten shillings for half a year.

At the beginning, the funds for the payment
of the salaries of the teachers were raised by
public grant, by general assessment on the sec-
tion, and by fees paid by each pupil. In the first
year of the school's history, the largest sum in
fees was paid by Mr. Sherman — seven shillings
and six-pence; and the lowest by Mr. Simerson
—two shillings and six-pence. In the second
year of the school's history, James Allcock
moved that the fee per pupil be one shilling and
three-pence for the year, Albert Bently moving
an amendment that it be one shilling and three-
pence per quarter. A compromise was affected
on motion of Simon Allcock making the fee two
shillings and six-pence per year.

On November 25th, 1854, it was proposed
to split the section and hold school in each
half for six months "to give children in more
remote parts of the section a chance." Another
motion considered was to exempt from fees chil-
dren who lived over two and a half miles from
the school.

As the settlement progressed, more liberal

274 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

ideas in regard to education began to make way ;
and, in 1885, Albert Bentley moved that fees be
abolished and the school made free. This motion
was lost, but a like motion by Mr. Bentley a year
later was carried, and education has been
free ever since.

But if that old mill and the still older Uxbridge
trail could only speak, what stories they could
tell of the majestic pines in which the night
winds sang their lullabies, of the musical hum
of the saws making lumber for the settlers'
dwellings, and of the heavy climbs by weary
oxen over steep hills on the winding road lead-
ing to Yonge Street and Muddy York beyond.

SELECTING LANDS IN PEEL AND WELLINGTON

Here is another case of a farm being in
possession of the same family continuously
since the early days of Ontario, and in the male
line at that, the present owner being the Honour-
able Manning Doherty, Minister of Agriculture
for the province.

A peculiar circumstance, showing how much
there is in luck after all, was connected with
the choice of location made by Bernard Doherty,
the great-grandfather of the minister of to-day.
When the first of the family arrived at Muddy
York in 1812, he was offered a "farm" on the
land now bounded by Queen, Yonge, Univer-
sity Avenue, and College Street, in the City of
Toronto. But this location, now in the very
heart of a city of over half a million people,
was scornfully rejected as being too low and wet
to be suitable for agricultural purposes. Instead

FROM FATHER TO SON 275

of accepting this property Mr. Doherty went
out to the vicinity of what is now Dixie, in the
County of Peel, where five hundred acres were
taken up. Three hundred of the total are
owned and operated by the great-grandson of
the original owner. For nine years over the
even century the title deeds of that property
have continuously carried the Doherty name.

Although the first of the Dohertys arrived in
Canada in 1812, permanent location was not
made until three years later. The necessity of
returning to Ireland to wind up affairs there
caused the delay. When Bernard Doherty
reached Quebec in 1815, he learned of the
Battle of Waterloo and of the final col-
lapse of the power of Napoleon — an incident
that provides a graphic mental picture of the
time that has elapsed since the Doherty home-
stead at Dixie was established.

An interesting light was thrown on the con-
ditions that existed a little over a century ago
in the metropolitan district of which Toronto is
now the centre by one statement made by Mr.
Manning Doherty, in February, 1916, when dis-
cussing early days.

" After the first crop of wheat had been har-
vested on the place," Mr. Doherty said, "my
great-grandfather took a couple of bags on
horseback to be ground at the old mill on the
Humber. There was no paved highway to
Toronto in those days, and the journey was
made over a blazed trail through the original
forest. For many years after that all the grain
crops were cut with a sickle, and when in the
time of my grandfather the first cradle was

276

introduced, it was thought that the last word
had been pronounced in labour-saving imple-
ments."

In the same field in which this cradle was
used, the Doherty of to-day plowed with a
tractor in the fall of 1917, while overhead airmen
were circling about in training for that great
conflict in which the empires of the Hohen-
zollerns and Hapsburgs were to be finally forced
into oblivion with the empire of Napoleon.

DOHERTY HOMESTEAD — BUILT IN* 184-i

The stone house begins to take the place of the log cabin.
"The walls are of stone and 24 inches through. The timber
was 13 inches square, of white pine, without a blemish."

"The first house on the place," Mr. Doherty
went on, as he continued the story of the early
days, "was of logs and was still standing when
the rebellion of 1837 occurred. There was a
huge hearthstone in front of the open fire-place,
and this was taken up and a hole dug beneath
in which all the money in the house, put
into a covered pail, was buried until the

FROM FATHER TO SON 277

trouble was over. Nor was this precaution
without reason. When William Lyon Macken-
zie was fleeing from Toronto to the bor-
der after the collapse of his forces, my grand-
father drove him from Willcock's Farm at Dixie
on Dundas Street, as far west as the Sixteen
Mile Creek. Had this been generally known at
the time it might have had serious consequences
for my grandfather. A new house was built in
1844, the wralls being of stone and twenty-four
inches through. A few years ago, when some
improvements were being made, an old sill was
removed. The timber was thirteen inches
square, of white pine, without a blemish; and,
although it had been in place for three-quarters
of a century, the wood was still as sound as
when cut from the surrounding forest. ' '

Of corresponding interest is the story of the
Morrisons, who came from the county of Long-
ford in Ireland to what was then the wilderness
of the township of Peel in the county of
Wellington. Three months with no stops by
the way was the experience of Robert Morrison,
father of J. J. Morrison, the moving spirit of the
IT.F.O. movement to-day.

The weary pilgrimage of the first Morrison
began, in 1845, with a tramp from the ancestral
home in Longford to Dublin, this being followed
by a tempestuous voyage in a small sailing craft
to Liverpool. Between Liverpool and Quebec
six weeks were spent, and then the real hard-
ships of the journey began. From Montreal to
Kingston by way of what is now Ottawa, the
only means of travel available at that time were
open boats, drawn by horses walking on the

278 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

bank when the rapids were reached; boats in
which people sat huddled in discomfort during
the day, and that we're almost unbearable when
sleep and rest were sought with the coming
of night.

Nor did relief come even when the long water
journey ended at Hamilton. Rather was it
merely a change from one form of hardship to
another. From Hamilton to Guelph, passage
was taken by stage which followed the circuit-
ous route through Gait and Preston, over
roads on which the jolting of the rude vehicle
jarred and rocked muscles cramped and stiffened
by the narrow quarters of the old Durham boats
on the St. Lawrence. The pilgrimage ended, as
it began, on foot. From Guelph, then a mere
hamlet, it was a case of tramping over mud or
corduroy roads, and finally a mere trail, to the
location selected on lot eighteen, concession
thirteen of Peel.

"We of the present," said Mr. J. J. Morrison
in telling the story, "can form but the faintest
conception of all that was involved of physical
suffering and mental anguish in the coming to
this country of those who arrived here from the
British Isles in the 'thirties, 'forties' and 'fifties
of the last century. All the associations of home
and childhood were forever left behind. The
conditions endured in crowded and unsanitary
sailing vessels, and the perils faced, were such
as those who travel by the palatial ocean liners
of to-day cannot possibly visualize. The exper-
iences after arrival were even more trying than
those borne during the weary journey across
the sea and by inland waterways. The neigh-

FROM FATHER TO SON 279

boui's in the new land, where there were
any, were all strange; skill in the use of
the tools required in building homes, clearing
the forest, and cultivating the newly cleared
fields had to be gained slowly and painfully
by experience. Stalwart of frame, firm of
purpose, and possessed of patience inexhaust-
ible, these pioneers must have been, otherwise
they would either have fallen by the wayside
during the migration or have perished amid the
loneliness of the forest after their arrival. ' '

THREE RACES BLENDING IN ONE

Of all the counties over which I passed
awheel in the last year of the old century, I do
not recall one which presented a more interest-
ing field of study, where the virtues of hos-
pitality and good neighbourhood were more man-
ifest, or where there was better evidence of
a quiet, but genuinely religious sentiment per-
vading the community, than Haldimand.

The county was interesting as a demonstra-
tion of the work that is going on more or less
all over Canada hi the building of a new nation
out of varied elements. Nowhere else, in rural
Ontario at least, have people of so many differ-
ent races been thrown together within so narrow
a circle. In Rainham, for example, the northern
half of the township was at the time of my visit
practically solidly German, while English and
Pennsylvania Dutch divided the remainder of
the township fairly evenly between them, with a
slight scattering all over of " Canadians" and
Irish. The neighbouring township of Walpole

280 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

was fairly solidly English, but in all parts of the
county the three chief elements named were
more or less mixed. At the beginning, the dif-
ferent races were divided in language and in
sentiment. The Pennsylvania immigrants of the
first generation spoke Dutch, those from Ger-
many conversed in German, and those from the
British Isles in English. To the first, "Home"
or "the Old Country" meant Pennsylvania;
to the second, the words spelled Germany;
to the third, they carried memories of the hedge-
rows and ivy-clad towers of rural England.
But a change had come as far back as twenty
years ago. Even in that part of Rainham
then known as "Little Germany," English
was becoming the language of the people.
"Although," said Nicholas Reicheld, one of the
first settlers in the section, "English is taught
only half a day at school, it is hi English that
the children converse when going to and from
school." All over the county, while among the
older people German or Dutch could still be
heard at that time, English was practically the
universal tongue among those of the third
generation; and a common tongue was creating
a common Canadian citizenship.

Mr. Reicheld was born in Lorraine in 1833,
thirty-seven years before that province was lost
to France as a result of the war of 1870.
Although a German, as his name indicates, and
also Protestant, Mr. Reicheld preferred French
to German rule. "True, French was the official
language," he said, "but in the home we spoke
in whatever tongue we liked and there was less
of police rule and less of irksome taxation under

FROM FATHER TO SON 281

France than there was afterwards under
Germany. After the province passed under
German control in 1870, there was a considerable
German emigration therefrom, some of these
emigrants going to the township of Hay, in
Ontario.

The German emigration to Lincoln, Welland,
Haldimand and Waterloo began in the 'thirties
of the past century, about the same time that
the emigration from the British Isles assumed
considerable volume. At the commencement
this German emigration was purely the result
of chance. One or two came and found this a
goodly land, and others followed. F. L. Beck,
and his brother, for instance, came over because
of what they had heard from friends in Lincoln.
The first of the Schneiders, on returning to
Germany after having been in Haldimand, told
the young men he met that in the three years
they expected to spend in the German army,
they could earn the price of a farm in Canada.
Schneider narrowly escaped a German jail for
saying this, but as a result of his statement
Nicholas Schneider and half a hundred others
from the old home came to Canada in the
'thirties. The collapse of the democratic
uprising in Europe, which occurred in 1848, gave
a still further impetus to the movement. These
emigrants from the Continent, like those from
the British Isles, came here hoping to find a land
in which they might escape the grinding burdens
due to old wars, and the danger of new wars,
and where each might hope to enjoy in peace
the fruit of his own toil.

"At frequent intervals during the year," Mr.

282 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Beck stated, "a constable went through our
village ringing the bell to remind the people
that a tax of some kind was about due." The
burden of taxation and the general social and
political conditions under the non-democratic
governments of the time, were among the impel-
ling motives that drove people across the seas.

Those from the Continent came under a
greater handicap than immigrants from the
British Isles. Everything was strange for them,
even the language of the new country. "When
we landed at New York, sixty-five days out from
Bremen, we hardly knew a word of English,"
F. L. Beck told me, and without a trace of
foreign accent in the telling. "But I started in
to learn as soon as I came. I asked the name of
this article and that in English until I learned
to speak it myself. I learned to read English
from the New Testament."

The first steady job Mr. Beck obtained after
arrival was when he hired out on a farm at sixty
dollars a year. In one winter, shortly after
coming, he and his brother took contracts to
thresh grain with a flail, their rate of pay being
every ninth bushel when they boarded them-
selves and every tenth when they were supplied
with board. Eventually Mr. Beck settled down
on lot fourteen on the sixth of South Cayuga.

"There were plenty of wild animals there
then," said Mr. Beck. ""Once, when my brother-
in-law, Schneider, was hunting his cattle he was
attacked by wolves. He fired at one and as the
charge was of light shot, this simply made the
brutes more angry. Using his gun as a club,
he retreated towards the clearing; but the

FROM FATHER TO SON 283

animals were not beaten off until fiiends came
to Schneider's assistance. I have no doubt that
if one of the wolves had got hold of his clothes
he would have been dragged down and killed."

Mr. Beck told of an amusing incident con-
nected with Mackenzie's candidature for Haldi-
mand in 1815, after his return to Canada.
" Mackenzie stopped at our place once during
the campaign and held a meeting in the school-
house on the corner of our lot," said Mr. Beck.
" There was no disturbance ; but at the conclusion
of the address a number of questions were asked,
for all of which the speaker had ready answers.
Asked by a Conservative if he had not run away
after the affair at Montgomery's Tavern,
Mackenzie said: "I did, and if you had seen me
on the back of the black mare you would have
said I was making mighty good time, too."

The American Civil War and the old
Reciprocity Treaty combined brought great
prosperity to the farmers of Haldimand.
Wages were low and farm products were high.
" Labour was cheap," said Mr. Beck, " because
the country was full of bounty jumpers and of
'skedaddlers' who had run away to escape the
draft for the Northern armies. There was no
trouble in getting one of these for ten dollars per
month. Some ingenious methods were devised
in getting these runaways across the border.
One woman brought her husband over hi a box,
which, according to the shipping bill, contained
a breeding hog.

"The country was full of American buyers.
I have seen these men bring over two or three
shot bags filled with corn. In going back the

284 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

bags were empty, but in exchange there were
from fifty to four hundred sheep in a drove.
Twenty dollar American gold pieces were
common, and cows that had been selling around
eighteen dollars jumped to forty dollars, a big
price for that time."

Nicholas Schneider, who came over about the
same time as the first of the Becks, in speaking
of the voyage across the Atlantic said; "The
passengers, of whom there were two hundred on
board, had to provide their own food for use on
the voyage. Our party made such full provision
that we had tAvo bags of biscuits left when we
reached New York, and we had cured German
beef and pork, as well as butter, after we
reached Rainham. The butter had been cooked
and put in sealers before leaving and it kept in
perfect condition all the way across.

4 'In one respect those who settled in Haldi-
mand in the 'thirties were fortunate. Being near
the front and near water communication the tim-
ber on their lands had at least some value. "The
land cost four dollars an acre," said Mr.
Schneider, "and the timber we sold paid for a
good deal of this. The old people never became
expert with the axe, but the young men were
as skilful as the best after a month in the woods.
In our first winter here, four of us, from sixteen
to twenty-two years of age, chopped sixteen
acres. In the following summer we logged and
burned eleven acres and sowed it in fall wheat."

One of the greatest hardships borne by the
first German settlers was in maintaining their
religious services. In all sections of the prov-
ince such difficulties were met with, but in the

FROM FATHER TO SON 285

case of the little German communities they
were felt with especial severity, because, to the
scattered nature of settlement was added the
language problem. Nowhere was more unselfish
service shown in meeting a difficult situation.

"Our first Evangelical minister was Mr. Ice;
and his. field extended all the way from Buffalo
to Cayuga and from Cayuga to Delhi forty miles
further on," said Mr. Beck. "Still, services
were held once a fortnight, with twenty to thirty
people present. For the quarterly meetings
people came long distances on horseback,
and these services lasted through Saturday and
Sunday. One of the most powerful and con-
vincing preachers we ever had was Mr.
Schneider. He kept up his work for many
years, frequently travelling forty miles to keep
appointments, and for all this he never received
a dollar save during three years when he gave
his whole time to the church."

"But," said Mr. Schneider, very simply,
when I saw him later, "there were little flocks
here and there without a shepherd and I thought
it my duty to serve them."

In the Evangelical cemetery at Fry's Cor-
ners, on the Dunnville-Port Dover Road, one
may see evidence of the fact that, as eyes were
closing in death, thoughts turned to the place
where the light of day was first seen and the
mother's love song was first heard. In this
Haldimand God's Acre, where lie the Kohlers,
Becks, Schwanzers, and Schmidts, was seen
one of the most remarkable instances of marital
constancy I have met with anywhere. On one
tombstone was recorded the fact that the wife

286 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

of Peter Zimmerman had died October 9th,
1879. Above this was lettered the name of
Peter himself with a blank on which to record
the date of his death — a blank that was still
unfilled twenty-one years later. Another
evidence of the strength of the family tie among
the German folk of Haldimand is seen in the
practice, commonly followed, of setting a plate
and chair at the family table for the father or
the mother who has passed away.

TREED BY WOLVES BUT YESTERDAY

Time and again, when collecting the material
for these sketches, I was amazed by statements
showing how great a transformation had
occurred in the life of two generations, and even
of one generation. I cannot, however, recall an
instance in which I was more impressed in this
way than when in the vicinity of Stratford in
1918. In the morning of a June day I called
on the Honourable Nelson Monteith, within four
miles of the city, and he told me that his father
had been treed by wolves on the road over
which I had passed amid farms on which there
were hardly enough trees to shelter a squirrel.
I was still more surprised, later on in that same
day, when I met one who remembered when
Stratford itself was scarcely a wayside village.
This was George McCallum, of North Easthope.

"When I first came here," Mr. McCallum
said, "Stratford consisted of a dozen houses,
two taverns and a flour-mill. Almost the entire
country surrounding the future city was covered
with bush; and real bush it was. On our own

FROM FATHER TO SON 287

place there were maples four feet in diameter
and rock elm, seven feet. The cutting down of
these trees and burning of logs and bush did not
by any means end the labour of clearing the
ground. The great stumps, in many cases forty
of them to the acre, still remained. I have seen
three successive grain crops produced among
such stumps without the aid of a plow, the seed
being covered with hoes in the hands of children.
In the beginning, wheat, produced under such
circumstances, had to be hauled all the way to
Gait to be ground. This was before a grist-mill
had been built in Stratford. I have seen wheat
sold in New Hamburg at sixty cents per bushel,
and a third of that in trade. Frosted or rusted
wheat could be disposed of only to distilleries.
There were two of these on the third concession
at that time, and their output sold at twenty
cents a gallon.

"Although timber was so abundant, the work
of preparing it for building purposes was
exceedingly onerous. We had to haul logs four-
teen miles to Wilmot's Centre to be sawn.
There were at that time three saw mills on
Cedar Creek within a quarter of a mile of each
other; but all trace of these, save part of one
of the dams, has since disappeared.

" These old-time saw-mills were very crude
affairs, 'up-and-down' saws being used. The
logs were not cut right through to the end in
sawing, a foot or so being left uncut for the
'dog' to hold on by. When the work of sawing
a log was finished the 'dog' was loosened and
the uncut section at the end was finished by
splitting with an axe. This split end of the

288 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

boards was called the 'stub-shot,' and was
thrown in free of charge by the mill-owner.
All the rough edging, suitable for roofing, one
could pile on a sleigh could be had for a dollar.
The choice lumber was choice. I have seen
boards sixteen feet long and three feet wide
without a blemish.

"Another little cross-roads village in the
neighbourhood of the saw-mills was called
'Shingle ton,' so named because shingles were
made there. The shingles were split by hand
from huge pine blocks, this work being done in
winter by men who worked as carpenters
in summer.

"Almost everything was home-made. Wool
clipped from sheep on the farm, was carded at
New Hamburg, Baden, or Haysville; and Ger-
man weavers, to be found in every neighbour-
hood, wove it into cloth. Woolen shirts, the only
kind known at that time, were likewise home-
made. Clothing of this kind could hardly be
worn out. Leather, in those days, was real
leather. Hand-made top boots, costing two dol-
lars and a half to three dollars per pair, would
outlast two or three pairs of to-day, and the tugs
of our first set of harness are still in use."

The first boom for settlers in South Perth
came with the Crimean War, when wheat went
up to two dollars and a half per bushel and
dressed pork to eight dollars per hundred-
weight. But this "prosperity," like that exper-
ienced during the late war, was fictitious and
was soon followed by a period of depression.

"The first genuine prosperity came, with
the inauguration of modern dairying," said

FROM FATHER TO S

289

MAKING TOOLS:

"Almost everything was Home-made."

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Mr. McCallum. "The township of Elma
was, in the early days, ill-adapted to grain
growing, and at one time the mortgages on
the township are said to have exceeded the value

SUNBONNET

of all the property therein. To-day Elma is one
of the most prosperous townships in Ontario,
dairying having wrought the change."

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW
A HEAVY HANDICAP

. .

!I can remember," said William Allan, of
Churchill, "when taverns were to be found at
almost every corner of the Penetang' Road
between the town-line at the lower end of Innis-
fil and the north end of the township. There
was one at Croxon's Corners, at the town-line;
one at Cherry Creek; two at Churchill, on the
fourth; one at the fifth; one at the seventh; two
at Stroud; one at the twelfth; and one at Pains-
wick, on the thirteenth. These were all along
the leading road in the township. Others were
scattered here and there, at other corners, off
the main highway.

"The drinking habits of the people were in
keeping with the number of taverns from which
liquor was supplied. Fighting was a natural
consequence of this excessive drinking. Liquor
flowed with special freedom during elections,
and fists and sticks formed the ultimate argu-
ment in the political controversies of the day.
Nor were elections the only cause of quarrels.
An incident of an international character once
occurred at the old Tyrone tavern at the corner
of the fifth. An American lumber firm (the
Dodge) was engaged in cutting pine from our
old place for the mill that was then in oper-
ation at Belle Ewart. The firm had a number

291

292 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

of Americans in its employment and one night a
fight began at the tavern between the Amer-
icans and a number of Canadians. The former
soon got the worst of it and were driven for
shelter to their camp across the way. There
was one negro in the American party, and he
came in for some of the hardest knocks. People
say that after the scrap was over, it was hardly
possible to tell which was his face and which
was the back of his head. If a white man had
received such a pounding, his head would have
been reduced to a pulp. A few years ago when
Wightman Goodf ellow tore down the old tavern,
bloodstains, resulting from this and other
fighting, could still be seen on the walls.

" Churchill, known in the early days as Bully's
Acre, was another great place for fighting. At
the old show-fairs you might see a scrap at any
time you chose to turn your head in the direction
from which the noise was coming. There is,
by the way, an interesting story of the manner
in which Churchill got its name. The first church
in the neighbourhood was at the sixth line. A
tavern-keeper located on the same corner and
named his place * Church Hill Tavern. ' Believing
the fourth line corners a better location he later
on moved there and carried his sign with him,
and thus the name * Churchill' Avas transferred
from the sixth to the fouth.

"Nor was the consumption of liquor confined
to taverns. At almost every store a pail of
liquor and a cup stood on the counter and all
comers were at liberty to help themselves. No
logging-bee could be held without an abundant
supply of the same sort of refreshment, and.

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 293

after the bee was over, men fought or danced
as fancy moved them — provided they were not
by that time too drunk to do either.

" Where did the money come from to pay for
all the liquor consumed'? It came from the
sweat-stained dollars that should have gone to
the creation of homes; women were robbed of
their due, and children of their heritage, that
liquor sellers might wax fat. I have been told
that the man who kept the old Tyrone tavern at
the fifth, was able to supply his boys with two
or three watches each from among those that
had been left in pawn for liquor. Nor was this
all. Many a good farm was drunk up over the
bar in the old days and the owners and their
children were forced to begin life over again in
a new location."

EARLY TEMPERANCE WORKERS

•"When I was a young man," said Neil
McDougall, who has already been quoted, "it
was considered the proper thing to call one's
companions up for a drink whenever a bar was
reached, and there was then a bar at almost
every cross-roads. The man who did not take
his liquor was looked upon as a milk-sop."

"There was a recognized rule in connection
with early drinking customs," J. S. McDonald,
who has also been previously quoted, added.
"At loggings the rule was a gallon of whiskey
for each yoke of oxen at the bee. Of course, the
whiskey was not all consumed at the bee. The
supply lasted until well into the night, when
dancing succeeded the labours of the day. Still,

with all the drinking, I do not remember seeing
any one very drunk."

"But if the men did not get drunk they some-
times quarrelled," interjected William Welsh.
" At one logging, which I attended on the first of
Huron in 1863, two men quarrelled over a race
between their oxen in getting the logs together.
The angry discussion continued while the men
were in the field and was resumed at the supper
table, where the two sat opposite each other.
The quarrel reached its culmination when one,
rising to his feet, struck the other full in the
face. In a moment the table was overturned,
dishes and victuals were on the floor, and the
two men were fighting back and forth among
the wreckage.

"Even some of the ministers opposed the
temperance cause in those days," Mr. Welsh
continued. "One of the first to introduce a
change was the Rev. Alexander Sutherland, a
Presbyterian divine, who came into the Queen's
Bush in the 'seventies. This minister not only
preached temperance to the men in their homes
but he went to the bars and induced men sodden
with liquor to go home and sober up. In 1864, a
young Methodist missionary, either Marshall or
Maxwell by name, formed the first temperance
lodge, at a place that was then known as
Starvation, but is now Pine River. The influ-
ence of these two men was simply amazing. It
was largely as a result of their efforts that a
community once much given to drunkenness, is
now noted for its sobriety."

Others of those interviewed gave much of
the credit for the change to the children of the

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 295

pioneers. These, seeing the evils of drunken-
ness in their elders, were read}r converts to the
gospel preached by devoted clergymen such as
the Presbyterian and Methodist ministers
named above.

German settlements were formed in Bruce
about the same time that the Scotch pioneers
settled there. Fifty years later these German
communities were, in the matter of social cus-
toms, much the same as they were at the begin-
ning. Even in the earliest days they were not
given to excessive drinking. Neither did they
later on abandon drinking altogether. Beer was
to them what whiskey was to the Scotch, and
men do not get drunk on beer taken as a
beverage like tea. In these German commun-
ities, the evils of drunkenness not having been
witnessed, the cause of total abstinence did not
make headway later on; and, until prohibition
came, those of the second generation continued
to use beer as their fathers and grandfathers
had used it before them.

Bruce and North Simcoe did not hold any
pre-eminence in the number of drinking places
in the pioneer period. Twenty years ago John
Langstaff told me that he remembered no fewer
than fifty-eight taverns on Yonge Street, or
nearly two per mile. Eleven of these were
inside what, in 1900, were the city limits. About
Thornhill and Richmond Hill the country was
cluttered with drinking places, and Bond Lake,
Wilcox Lake, and the Pinnacle had one each.
Their numbers thinned out towards Holland
Landing, but at "The Landing" itself there
were three. The greatest development of the

296 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Yonge Street tavern trade occurred between
1837 and 1847. With the opening of the North-
ern Railway, and consequent falling off hi traffic
by road, a decline set in.

"While the tavern-keepers prospered the dis-
tilling interest prospered as well," said Mr.
Langstaff, "and at one time I could count the
sites of no fewer than nine distilleries between
Toronto and Richmond Hill. A distillery was
not a very elaborate affair in those days,
—a roof, a few round logs, and some tubs being
about all that was called for in the way of equip-
ment. The most important consideration was a
good spring, and a farm that had such was con-
sidered a favourable site for a distillery."

One of the first of the old taverns was built
at Elgin Mills. There, lot fifty-one was taken
up by Bolsar Munshall in 1793, and twenty-five
years later Aaron Munshall established a tavern
on the place. A daughter of the first Munshall
married a man named Wright, and theirs was
the first white child born north of Toronto.

The best known of these old hostelries," said
Mr. Langstaff, "was of course, Montgomery's
Tavern. Montgomery, on being pardoned for
his part in the rebellion, afterwards established
the Franklin House in Toronto and died in
Barrie in his eightieth year. Another famous
place was the old Red Lion. Polling was held
at the Lion in the election of 1832, following
Mackenzie's expulsion from the Legislature in
1831. Forty sleighs escorted Mackenzie to the
poling place, and in the first hour and a half
one hundred and nineteen votes were cast for
him to one for Street, his opponent, and then the

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 297

latter 'threw up the sponge.' On lot thirty-five,
north of Thornhill, was the Yorkshire House,
and connected with this was a mile race track."
The humorous side of old-time drinking cus-
toms has been referred to more than once. Let
Mr. Langstafd tell something of the tragic side :
"A stranger," said he "disappeared from one
of the old Yonge Street taverns at which he had
been stopping. Four young men were sus-
pected of murdering him, but, in the absence
of proof, no arrests were made. Two of the
suspects, however, afterwards committed suicide
by hanging. A number of idlers were spending
the day in a bar-room, and one offered to
treat the crowd if another of the party would go
across the street and put a certain question to
a man standing there. The wager was accepted,
but no sooner was the question put than a fight
began between the questioner and the one ques-
tioned. An unlucky blow killed the latter and
the slayer ended his days in the Kingston
penitentiary. I have seen four landlords carried
to premature graves from the Ship Hotel, Rich-
mond Hill. Three landlords of another tavern
died of delirium tremens. There were seven
boys in a household wherein, in accordance with
the customs of the day, an open barrel was kept
in the cellar. One of the boys was found dead
in the woods with a bottle by his side ; a second,
while on a spree, was choked to death by a piece
of meat he was eating; a third was found dead
in a stable where a keg of whiskey was kept; a
fourth, as a result of excessive indulgence, lost
his power of speech; and a fifth left for parts
unknown."

298 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

The tragedy of this household was in a
measure paralleled by the tragic history of a
blacksmith shop which Mr. Langstaff's father
owned. One tenant of this shop, with the help
of his wife, who was a milliner, became the
owner of a shop, a home, and two thousand
dollars. Then the man began to drink and, in
a few years, home, shop, and money were all
gone. The second tenant of the Langstaff
smithy had been a hard drinker but, at his

OLD OAKEN BUCKET

ASH-LEECH

wife's solicitation, had sworn off and made the
wife custodian of the family purse. One day,
when a burning thirst came on, the man asked
his wife for a shilling to buy a drink, and was
refused. In a fit of rage the man cut his throat
with a razor and died eight days later. A third
tenant of the shop went to Toronto for a spree

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 299

before taking possession, and, while on this
spree, fell down a stairway and broke his neck.

York's first hanging, too, was directly trace-
able to drink. Two men, Dexter and Vanda-
burg, were neighbours and friends. Dexter
invited Vandaburg, who was cradling in an
adjacent field into the house to have a drink.
Angry words followed the drinking and Vanda-
burg was shot dead by Dexter. The latter, after
due trial, was sentenced to be hanged. The
scaffold was erected in a public place with steps
leading up to the platform. When Dexter was
brought to the foot of the structure he refused
to mount the steps. Even Bishop Strachan's
soothing plea of, "Do go up, Mr. Dexter!" failed
to move him. Eventually a cart was brought
and Dexter, placed in this, was driven under the
scaffold, and on the noose being adjusted the
cart was withdrawn. The usual inquest in such
cases was held while the body lay on the curry-
ing-board in Jesse Ketchum's tannery and after-
wards the body, not even boxed up, was taken
home by Dexter 's own team and buried on his
own farm, a fewr rods from Yonge Street.

"One of the saddest tragedies of the period
when taverns and distilleries were more numer-
ous than schools are now, was connected with the
death of a young lad," Mr. Langstaff stated.
"This boy had gone with his father to a nearby
distillery to get a keg of whiskey for harvest.
Other men were at the distillery at the same
time, and all, in accordance with the usual cus-
tom, helped themselves at the open tub over
which a cup was conveniently hanging. While
the men were otherwise engaged, the boy,

300 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

unnoticed by them, went to the tub, helped him-
self and died directly after reaching home."

In addition to these tragedies the drink habit
interfered sadly with the training of the young.
Even amongst school teachers drunkenness was
common in the early days. One of the Bruce
pioneers told of his school being closed for days
while the teacher was on a spree.

A TEMPERANCE TOWNSHIP

About 1868 descendants of the Oro pioneers
undertook in turn the work of pioneering
in the country adjacent to where the Notta-
wasaga River enters Georgian Bay. Among
those who took part in this movement were
the Langmans, Cottons, Andersons, Lockes,
Hunters, and Camerons. These, locating in
what was then unbroken bush, formed the
settlement of which Crossland is now the centre.

"When we located," said Noah Cotton, one of
these Flos pioneers, "there was nothing but a
lumberman's road to Elmvale, five miles away.
In the first fall after our arrival we managed to
get in five acres of fall wheat. Although we
suffered nothing like the hardships met with by
the first settlers in neighbouring townships that
were opened up at an earlier period, we had it
hard enough. On my way home from Elmvale
with my first grist I had to drive a good part
of the way through mud that in many places
flowed over the top of the jumper. The tails
of the oxen, standing out straight behind,
actually floated over this slimy mass and the
bags of flour were coated with mud.

301

"The first threshing-machine in the section
was owned by a man named Richard Whittaker,
and four oxen provided the power for operating
it. When anyone wanted the machine he had to
haul it to his own place. Almost every night,
after working in the field all day, John, a neigh-
bour, and his men came over to my place for a
stag dance in the evening. With an old violin
I furnished music for the others. One night,
when John was putting in a few extra touches
on the dance, there was a sudden crash and the
fancy stepper shot through a hole in the floor
into the cellar. He had stepped on a knot that
extended almost all the way across one board
in the floor and this gave way under his weight.
But, bless you, that did not stop the dance. With
a yell like an Indian, John jumped out of the
cellar and in a moment was at it again, harder
than ever.

"No whiskey was ever seen at raising or bee
in this section. Twelve years before we came
here a temperance lodge had been formed at
Colin Gilchrist's home in Oro. My brother,
sister, myself, and others joined that lodge, and
we brought our principles with us. To that fact
is largely due the prosperity of the settlement."

Mrs. Cotton told of the woman's side of it.
"I was here two weeks before I saw another
woman," she said. "My first visitor was Miss
Langman, and she had to tramp two miles
through the bush in order to make the call. She
blazed the trail with a draw-knife as she came
so as to be sure of finding her way home again.
One night while my husband was away, an
Indian, who had been hunting all day without

'^ti&i^^

RAISING A LOG BARN

"No whiskey was ever seen at raising or bee in this section.

302

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 303

success, came in and asked for food and shelter.
I was frightened at first, but, after eating, he
curled himself up beside the stove and slept
quietly until morning.

"One of the most serious dangers to which the
early settlers were exposed was bush fires," she
continued. "Some years after the work of
clearing had been carried on in Flos, bush fires
swept over the township. Henry Thurston had
the hair burned from his head as the flames
swept past him, and my husband, caught in a
roadway with a roaring furnace in the bush on
each side, threw a blanket over a child in the
bottom of the wagon and then raced for life to
the open clearings beyond. At least one life
was lost, William Kerr being burned to death
while fighting off the fires that menaced his
buildings. ' '

VIRTUES AND FAILINGS

The Rev. John Gray, the first Presbyterian
minister in Oro, had as his field not only this
one township, but all the territory from Barrie
on the south to Nottawasaga Bay on the north,
with part of Mara on the east side of Lake
Simcoe thrown in for good measure. The near-
est Presbyterian place of worship to the south
Avas the old sixth line church in Innisfil. To the
north was the unbroken wilderness that then
extended all the way to James Bay.

In covering his field in summer Mr. Gray rode
fifty miles on horseback over roads where
stumps and swails made travel difficult, and in
the intervals preached two or three times on
week davs and held four services on Sunday.

304

In winter, when driving in a cutter, he fre-
quently had to get out and make his way
through the soft snow in order to permit a team
hauling a load to pass.

"But there were compensations," Mr. Gray
told me twenty years ago in his then comfortable
home in Orillia. "The people were eager for
the gospel. When Dr. McTavish, of Beaverton,
administered sacrament at old Knox, the first
Presbyterian church in Oro, people came from
Mara and Rama as well as from Medonte and
Orillia to attend. When the doctor had sacra-
ment service in his own church at Beaverton
people travelled fifty and sixty miles to take
part in the services. To provide accommodation
for those from a distance every house was
thrown open, and, if that did not prove sufficient,
barns were opened as well."

Mr. Gray, besides ministering to the spiritual
needs of his flock, also assisted in meeting their
educational requirements. For a time he served
as superintendent of schools; not infrequently,
after inspecting a school during the day, ho hold
religious service in the same building in tlio
evening. Nor were religious meetings confined
to schoolhouses and churches. One of the
regular services was held in the room of an old
frame tavern which then occupied the site where
the Orillia House now stands.

This recalls the fact that in Oro and adjacent
townships there was, in the early days, the same
remarkable combination that existed about the
same time in Bruce— intense religious feeling
with an ardent love for "old Scotch." This is
not surprising in the case of the pioneers of Oro.

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 305

many of whom had been engaged in the distil-
leries of Islay before coming to Canada.

At weddings, baptisms, and funerals alike
whiskey flowed freely. In fact on one occasion
those called in to assist at a funeral became so
drunk that they could not bury the corpse.
Once, too, when Mr. Gray was about to perform
a marriage ceremony, the bridegroom took him
to one side and asked him to overlook the cus-
tomary fee for the time being as he "had to
pay four dollars for a barrel of whiskey," and
that took all the money he had. "A barrel was
the regular allowance for a wedding at that
time," said Mr. Gray.

"Those who entered the northern part of
Simcoe when I did, about 1850, had it hard
enough, but those who came in thirty years
earlier had it much harder," Mr. Gray contin-
ued. "I have heard the first of the Drurys and
Sissons say that at times they had to depend on
wild fruit for a large part of their subsistence."

While Mr. Gray was the first Presbyterian
minister in Oro, he was not the first to carry the
Gospel into that township. The first regular
clergyman in the township appears to have been
the Rev. Mr. Raymond, the organizer of a set-
tlement formed at Edgar by runaway slaves
thirty odd years before the American Civil War
broke the chains of slavery in the South. "Mr.
Raymond," said Mr. James Smith, a pioneer
of Oro, "like Mr. Gray, was a man of varied
gifts. Largely by the work of his own hands
he built the Congregational Church at Edgar
in which he afterwards preached for the
coloured people. He also taught school in Orillia

306 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

during the week, including Saturday forenoon,
and then walked to Edgar to preach on Sunday.
But walking was nothing to him. One morning
he started from what is now the east end of
Barrie and reached Toronto on foot before
sunset.

'The most picturesque figure in this negro
settlement, which at one time included over
twenty-five large families, was a negro preacher
named Sorrocks. This man, himself a runaway
slave, had a wonderful influence over his people
and during his frenzied preaching some of his
hearers became frantic and tried to climb the
walls of the church on the way to heaven. The
greatest time of all with them was the service
that watched the old year out and the New
Year in. That continued from dark till dawn.

"At one of these midnight services," con-
tinued Mr. Smith, "three young white men from
Crown Hill caused a disturbance and the
preacher called on a Brother Eddy to eject the
intruders. Brother Eddy advanced boldly
towards them, but, as he came near, one of
them, rising to his full height of six feet and
more, asked, —

" 'Going to put me out?'

"Brother Eddy, after looking the giant up and
down and studying the situation decided
not to try it, but instead asked for a chew
of tobacco.

"Still these negroes were rather dangerous
customers at times. After living for years in
what was then the wilderness north of Barrie,
they seemed to revert in a measure to the savage
nature of their African ancestors, and it was a

risky thing to insult them. They were particu-
larly touchy on any matter relating to their
colour.

"In the days before the Civil War destroyed
the slave-holding aristocracy of the South, some
of the Southern planters occasionally came up
to the Lake Simcoe country to hunt deer. When
one of these Southern hunting parties reached
Belle Ewart a big negro from Edgar, his eyes
blazing with savage hate, jumped on a member
of the party, a Southern youth, and would have
torn him limb from limb had not others inter-
fered. The explanation of the attack was that
the negro had been this white man's slave and,
while a slave, had been cruelly horse-whipped
by his master.

"They were good axe-men and useful at log-
gings, ' ' said Mr. Smith, ' * but poor farmers. The
land they chopped over on their own places ;is
a rule soon grew up again as thick as before.
But they were good workers when employed by
others. One of the community, Mrs. Banks, had
a rare skill with herbs and was the 'medicine
man' of the neighbourhood. When sickness
occurred, the whole community came to see the
sick one and incidentally to share in the pro-
visions they knew the whites would supply."

Mr. Smith, from whom these particulars of
the Edgar negro settlement were obtained, was
the grandson of a man who had his wrist dis-
abled at Quatre Bras just before Waterloo. As
partial compensation for military service the
grandfather received the grant of an Oro bush
lot, and to this he removed in 1831. In moving
to his farm this old soldier had to follow the

308 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

usual Yonge Street-Lake Simcoe route of the
time to Hawkstone.

"From Hawkstone," the grandson told me,
"my grandfather and his family tramped over
twelve miles through the bush, carrying their
belongings on their backs. In lighting a fire
they used a flint and punk. Grandfather's
nearest neighbour, when he settled on his lot,
was a negro a mile and a half away. The nearest
white was Smith of Dalston, six miles distant.
He had to carry his wool to Newmarket to have
it made into cloth and his grist to Holland
Landing to be ground. He had the choice of
two markets for his produce — Barrie and
Penetang'. At the Thompson store at Penetang'
he could get just enough cash to pay his taxes;
the balance due on his produce had to be taken
out in trade. At Barrie he could not get even
as much cash."

Mr. Gray also threw interesting light on
the origin of some place-names in the country
about the upper end of Lake Simcoe. As else-
where stated, a number of Peninsular War
veterans were pioneers in the Lake Simcoe
country, and among these Spanish terms were
as common as French expressions among the
Canadians who were in the mud of Flanders at
a later day.

"Oro," said Mr. Gray, "is Spanish for gold,
and Peninsular veterans seeing the gold-like
yellow sand on the shore of Lake Simcoe applied
the name to Oro. 'Orillia,' again, is Spanish for
coast and hence the name given to Orillia town
and township. I cannot, however, account for
the names Rama, Mara, and Thorah. These are

STRONf! DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 309

of Hebrew origin, Rama meaning 'high'; Mara,
•bitter;' and Thorah, kthe law.1 The only
possible explanation that occurs to me is that
a Jew ma}' have been engaged in the survey of
those townships."

PIONEER CAMP MEETINGS

It was in the last days of May, 1898, that
I visited the township of Clarke and chatted
with many old people in the neighbourhood.
Best remembered amongst these are H. L.
Powers, Samuel Billings, Thomas Thornton,
John Bigelow, Simon Powers, Lewis Clark,
John Parker, Aaron Davis, Joseph Fox, John
Gardener, Thomas Hooper, Thomas Patter-
son, Robert Burgess and his wife. These
were the last of the Clarke pioneers. Of the
fourteen whose names are mentioned none
remain alive to-day, with the exception of Simon
Powers, the father of Arthur Powers, one of the
most untiring workers in the interests of the
TLF.O. The first decade of the present century
witnessed the departure of practically all that
remained of thos-e who had first-hand knowledge
of pioneering days in what is now known as
Old Ontario.

"Norman and Saxon and Dane are we," sang
Tennyson in his greeting of Princess Alexandra
when she came from her home in Denmark to
wed the late King Edward then Prince of Wales.
Of equally mixed, and at least equally honour-
able ancestry, are we in Canada. One illustration
of this is given in a fragment of the family his-
tory of the one from whom I received most of the

310 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
facts herein given. H. L. Powers' paternal
grandfather of English ancestry, served in
Washington's bodyguard in the American
Revolutionary War. His maternal grandfather
Larue, of French ancestry, fought for the King
George of that day and had his property in the
thirteen Colonies confiscated for his pains.

In compensation Larue was given two hun-
dred acres for each one of the several members
of his family in Canada. One of these children,
the mother of H. L. Powers, received as her
share two hundred acres now forming part of
the site of the city of Ottawa. Mr. Powers was
however, born in the state of New York'
but early in life settled near Brockville, remov-
ing in 1832 to what was then the wilderness of
Jlarke, where he and his connections later on
largely aided in turning the forest into fruit-
ful fields.

"Our family had one team of horses and one
yoke of oxen when they started from Brockville,
and nine days were spent on the journey to
where the village of Orono now stands," said
Mr. Powers. "They were obliged to cross the
Trent River in a scow, and narrowly escaped
drowning in doing so. On the last stage of the
journey they had to cut a road for four miles
through the woods in order to reach the
future site of Kirby. Orono was then a hemlock
bush. The only settlers in the neighbourhood
were two families of Baldwins and an old
bachelor named Eldad Johns."

A bear was treed and shot the day the Powers
arrived, and Mr. Powers' first night was passed
in the lee of a fallen pine with the boughs form-

STRONG DRINK. RELIGION AND LAW 311

ing a roof. The first Christmas day was spent
in packing flour from Munro's Mill, near New-
castle. Mr. Powers, his father, and two brothers
each carried a load home on his back.

The fraternal spirit of the early days is shown
by the action of Eldad Johns, the bachelor of
Orono. During one winter of real scarcity,
wheat soared locally to two dollars and a
half per bushel. Johns was one of the few men
who had grain to spare, but none of this was for
those with money. "Go," said Johns to these,
"and buy from those who have it to sell. My

MAKING MAPLE SYRUP

wheat is all for those who have no money and
for them it is without price."

The electric lights which now illuminate the
village streets were not even dreamed of in the
days of the pioneers. "Those who had tallow
candles were the fortunate ones," said Mr.
Powers. "Many depended on wicks set in oil
held in saucers, or more frequently still on the
blazing logs in the open fireplace.

312 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

'There were, however, luxuries even in that
day, ' ' he continued. ' k Maple suga r was made by
all the settlers, some families putting down as
much as seven hundred pounds in a season.
There were no apples, but there was something
else just as good. The pumpkin bee was a
social function, and lads and lassies gathered
from miles around to peel and string pumpkins
for drying, just as those of a later generation
had their apple-paring bees. And what delicious
pies those dried pumpkins did make ! ' '

Hunting was a source of pleasure as well as
of profit to the pioneers. Cyrus Davidson,
a celebrated marksman of the pioneer period,
brought down seven deer in one day, and Mr.
Powers' father shot one hundred and nineteen
in all, his one great regret being that he was not
able to make it the even one hundred and twenty.

But the dancing! "Once," Mr. Powers
resumed, ' * when father, my brother, and myself
were on our way home from Port Hope we
stopped at a hotel where a dance was in pro-
gress. The landlord told us to join in. Scarcely
had we entered the room when two girls came up
and invited us to be their partners. (We did
not wait for introductions in those days.) The
dance was the 'opera reel,' with girls on one
side and boys on the other in parallel lines. It
was while holding opposite lines that the fancy
steps were put in. My brother was one of the
best fancy dancers I have ever seen, and after
the girls saw how he could 'step it off' we had
no lack of partners for the rest of the evening.
I sometimes served as fiddler at local dances,
and even yet I can see the bright-eyed girls, clad

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 313

in homespun, as they swung in the arms of the
swains of long ago.

"At a later period came the camp meetings,
and these were at times scenes of the most
intense excitement. The sermon, and it was the
real old-timer with plenty of brimstone in it,
was followed by singing, and during the singing
sinners were urged to advance to the penitent
bench. 'Come Sinners to the Gospel Feast ' and
'Blow Ye the Trumpet Blow' were among the
favourite hymnal appeals to the ungodly. The
fierce urge of the sermon and the passionate call
of the singers stirred the massed audience to a
state of indescribable excitement. I have seen
people literally fall over each other while the
anguished wails of repentant sinners mingled
with the voices of the singers and the weird
sound of the wind in the tree tops.

"The most exciting time of the kind I ever
experienced was at an indoor revival, held by a
man named Beale, at Orono in 1843. This man
warned the assembled hundreds to prepare for
the end of the world, which he declared was then
at hand. One man actually tried to climb a
stovepipe on the way to heaven and one woman
went raving mad. ' '

But there was another side to these religious
upheavals of the 'forties — a side furnished by
some who persistently remained without the
fold. At one camp meeting, held near Myrtle,
in Ontario County, a rowdy led in a gang
of toughs bent on disturbing the meeting. "A
magistrate who happened to be on the grounds
swore in a dozen of us to keep the peace," said
Mr. Powers. "As soon as sworn in we went

314

over to the intruders and escorted them to the
open road. When we readied the road one of
the specials, a big muscular chap named Mosher,
who either had not been converted or had back-
slidden, went up to the bad men and quietly
remarked: 'Now, if you chaps have not had
enough, I will take you on one at a time and lick
the crowd. ' The challenge was not accepted and
there were no more attempts to disturb that
particular meeting.

'These old-time camp meetings, were held all
the way from Orono to Whitby neighbourhood.
Jacob Purdy's bush on the seventh concession
of Clarke provided one of the camp sites.
Among the preachers were Bishop Smith and
Solomon Waldron of Mallorytown, Mr. Pirette
of Whitby, and Charles Simpson of Sidney.

Mr. Powers led the singing at many of
these gatherings. I heard him sing some
of the old hymns when he was well past three
score and ten, and even then his voice was clear
as a bell. The Briggs family of Whitby were
also among the famous camp-meeting singers of
the 'forties and 'fifties.

Speaking of religious services in the early
days, Mr. McDougall of Bruce County once said
to me: "In the evening the family sat around
the open hearth, where the great logs blazed, and
sang Psalms learned in Scotland. On Sundays
father and mother walked ten miles to church.
Communion services were held at Kincardine
once a year, these services lasting from Thurs-
day to Monday. To these services people came
from a distance of twenty or thirty miles, many
of them along blazed trails, over swails knee

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 315

deep in mud, mid through slashes where wind
storms had left trees in a tangled mass. No
building in Kincardine was large enough to hold
those who came and services were held in the
open. Rector McKay was precentor and the
whole congregation joined in the singing, that
familiar Psalm of faith and trust being their
favourite :
'The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want/ "

EXCITING SERVICE IN A MILL

4 'One of the first places open for service was
Calder's mill in Beaverton," said Mr. McFad-
yen, to whom we have listened before. "One
Sunday I arrived a little late and the building
was already crowded. I had just taken my place
near a set of stones, the Psalm had been given
out, and Precentor Gillies was leading the
singing, when there was a noise of grinding and
wrenching and the next moment I found myself
at the edge of a small precipice. Below was a
tangled mass of timber, boards, and struggling
humanity, while the noise of breaking timbers
was succeeded by the shrieks of the terrified
people.

"The floor of the mill had given way
under the weight of the assembled congregation.
Strange to say the only casualty was a broken
leg, Miss McCrea being the victim. The minister
on that occasion was the Rev. Mr. Galloway.
An uncle of Dr. Galloway, of Beaverton, and
Colonel Cameron, who owned part of what is
now the Gunn farm, took charge of the work
of rescue.

316 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

"At the beginning there were long intervals
between regular services, and during these
intervals the people met together, in the home
of one or other of the neighbours, to read the
scriptures and sing psalms. Regular services
drew congregations from the whole country for
miles around, the people walking bare-footed,
in order to save their shoes, until within a short
distance of the place of assemblage, and then
stopping to put on their footwear that they
might enter the sanctuary decently shod.

''Frequently service was held in the open
woods. On such occasions the men gathered on
Saturday to clear out the underbrush and pre-
pare rude seats for the congregation. Never
have been witnessed more impressive services
than those that came with the succeeding Sab-
bath. No cathedral could boast pillars equal to
those formed by the giants of the forest; no
vaulted arch fashioned by man so impressive as
the leafy canopy above, while the rude altar was
glorified by shafts of gold as the rays of the
afternoon sun shot athwart the trees. The gen-
tle breeze that stirred the pine tops created a
melody deeper and sweeter than that produced
in response to the touch of the player, and as the
voices of the great congregation rose in ever-
swelling volume, the earth and all that lived
therein seemed to join in the song of praise. It
was no formal service then; the declaration that
'The Lord is my Shepherd' expressed a living
belief in an over-ruling Providence, and eyes
were lifted unto the hills around in expec-
tation of seeing the ever-present help in time
of need."

STRONG DRINK. RELIGION AND LAW 317

318 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

The old days are gone; the woods are gone;
the pioneers themselves rest in the shadows of
the old stone church ; but the memory and influ-
ence of these simple, believing pioneers will
remain long after even the church itself has
crumbled into dust.

EARLY RELIGIOUS REVIVALS

Frequent reference is made in these sketches
to the intensity of the religious fervour prevail-
ing in Ontario within a period roughly extend-
ing from 1830 to 1850. A partial explanation of
the phenomenon may be found in the conditions
then existing. The tide of emigration from
Europe was at its height. Family and commun-
ity ties with the old land were being forever
broken; hardships of many kinds pressed with
crushing weight upon the pioneers. The loneli-
ness of isolated families was beyond description.
The dense forests, the great lakes and rivers,
and the dread magnificence of nature were all
calculated to make a deep impression on minds
peculiarly susceptible to spiritual influences.
Perhaps never were the comforts of religion
more deeply felt, even by the Jews during the
Babylonian captivity.

One of the most extraordinary phases of the
wave that then swept over Ontario was seen in
the Millerite frenzy of the 'forties. Some first
hand information regarding this was obtained
from Charles Alliii, then living in Newcastle.

"Two brothers named Huff represented the
Millerite movement in the district covering
Newcastle, Orono, and Kirby," Mr. Allin said,

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 319

"These men used a blackboard in connection
with their preaching and that blackboard was
covered with figures and Scriptural texts. From
the evidence thus graphically presented they
proved conclusively, to their own satisfaction
at least, that the end of the world was at hand.
Many shared their belief and as the appointed
day approached the excitement was intense.
Even when the day arrived and the predicted
event did not occur, the faith of the Millerites
was not shaken. This continued faith was based
on an ingenious explanation given by the lead-
ers. They said that they had made the same
sort of miscalculation a man would make in
counting the steps from his door to the gate post,
by including the doorstep itself in the number.
They made a new calculation, with allowance for
this sort of error, and declared that the sound-
ness of their new prophecy was beyond question.
As the second day approached, excitement, high
enough before, reached the point of madness.
But there were mockers even then. A few even-
ings before the day named for the final crash,
some of the boys from the village loosened the
pegs of the gigantic tent in which a lot of shout-
ing Millerites were assembled, and shouts and
screams were smothered under the collapsed
canvas structure. A day or two before this, as
we were chopping in our woods, one of the Huffs
approached and said—

'You may chop and you may log;
You may plough and you may sow;
But you certainly shall not reap!'

'I know we did reap, though" added Mr.

320 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

Allin with a smile, "because I cradled most of
the resultant crop myself."

THE CAVAN BLAZERS

" "The Cavan Blazers' were the social regu-
lators of the early days in the northern part
of Durham," said George Berry. "Now-a-days
it is all law, law, law. If any little dispute
occurs between neighbours, or if some one is act-
ing in a manner injurious to the community,
the magistrate and constable must be called in.
'The Blazers' settled all such matters in the
early days without delay, without cost, and with
less of ill-feeling than follows upon legal pro-
ceedings now. Not only that, but they made the
punishment fit the crime in the case of men
whose offences could not be reached in the
ordinary way.

"For instance there was one mean and gen-
erally disagreeable fellow, whose conduct was
such as to call for a little discipline. In those
days they teamed grain to Port Hope, more than
twenty miles distant, and loaded their wagons
the night before so as to get an early start the
next morning. This man had a wagon load of
grain all ready to go to market. When he got
up in the morning he found the wagon, still
loaded, astride the ridge of the barn. He may
not have enjoyed the work of getting the wagon
and bags down from the roof, but ho was a better
citizen afterwards.

"Then there was a postmaster who insisted
on pasturing his calf on the roadway. A nearby
church and adjoining cemetery were both open

STRONG DEINK, RELIGION AND LAW 321

to the road, and the calf would go into the grave-
^yard and feed on the long grass. Then, as a
chill came on with the night, it would lie on the
warm steps of the church and leave them in a
most filthy state by morning. 'The Blazers'
stood it as long as possible, and then one Satur-
day night something happened. When the store-

AN TTNTTSUAIj SIOHT

"There was one mean fellow whose conduct was such as to call for
a little discipline. ' '

keeper got up late Sunday morning, he found the
calf boxed up in a large crockery crate in front
of his store door and the crate securely anchored
with some heavy stones and a block of timber
placed on top. The lesson was effective. There
was no more desecration of the place of burial;

322 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

and the church steps no longer required scrub-
bing every Sunday morning before service.

" 'The Blazers' had their own method of
punishing contempt of the court they main-
tained. One man, forgetting the respect due so
useful and august a tribunal, had the temerity
to express, in a letter, sentiments which 'The
Blazers' thought derogatory to their dignity.
One evening, as he was walking home along the
concession line, he found himself unexpectedly
in the midst of a group of figures that appeared
from the gloom of the fence corners. He was
first requested to eat his own letter, and the
request was promptly complied with. Then he
was asked, and again no special urging was
called for, to hold up his right hand and repeat
a solemn declaration that 'I. A. B., am the great-
est liar on top of earth. '

"On another occasion, 'The Blazers' came in
for what they considered unjust censure. In
this case the criticism was given in the course
of a sermon by a preacher in the neighbourhood.
The preacher also happened to be going along
the road a short time afterwards, and he like-
wise found himself in the midst of a group of
stalwart figures that appeared from the sur-
rounding gloom. He was asked to get out of
the buggy. He got out. He was requested to
kneel in the dust of the roadway. He kneeled.
Then he was requested to pray, not for the con-
version of 'The Blazers/ but for the success of
their efforts to maintain order and promote
good citizenship in their own way. He prayed.

"A widow had a cow that was almost as great
a nuisance as the storekeeper's calf. It carried

STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW 323

a bell — a jarring, jangling bell, that kept the
whole neighbourhood awake at nights. One
Saturday night there was an unusual calm; the
bell had disappeared from the cow's neck.
Next morning it was found hanging from the
middle of a telegraph wire that ran opposite a
church in which the sermons were of the two
hour order. That Sunday, the preacher had
scarcely reached the 'firstly' when a gentle
breeze sprang up and jang-clang went the bell
as it swayed on the wire. The sermon pro-
ceeded, but before it was fairly in the 'secondly'
stage, the wind had increased and the Jang,
clang, clang, brought the discourse to an abrupt
and unusually early ending. 'The Blazers' got
their two birds with that one shot," chuckled
Mr. Berry, "the cow no longer disturbed the
night, and from that time on the sermons in that
particular church were of moderate length.

" 'The Blazers' were fine workers and had
their own peculiar sense of humour. One night,
while out on some other business, a quiet young
man happened to be going the same way on
horseback. He, too, suddenly found himself in
a bunch of men on the roadway. Their unlocked
for appearance rather alarmed him at the start,
but their quiet demeanour and gentle conversa-
tion reassured him, and he thought he must have
struck a lot of neighbours going home from
prayer meeting. When lie got into the stable,
with a light, he found that the tail of his horse
had been as neatly shaved as ever a chin has
been shaved since by a barber with all the
accessories of electric light and upholstered
chair.

324 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

" 'The Blazers' were all Orangemen, and there
was only one Roman Catholic in the whole
township. One year, as harvest season ap-
proached, this man was taken ill and was unable
to care for his ripening crop. It was then that
'The Blazers' showed the warm heart beneath
the sometimes rude exterior. They went one
night and cut and shocked the ripening grain on
the farm of their sick neighbour. A few nights
later they returned and hauled the grain into
the barn.

" Some times in their enthusiasm for good
fellowship 'The Blazers' committed pranks from
which the settlers suffered loss. A farmer's wife
had a turkey gobbler of which she was inordin-
ately proud — a regular forty pounder. One
night she heard a gentle flutter and squawk in
a nearby tree in which the turkeys roosted.
Going to the door, lamp in hand, she stood
revealed in the flickering light. A few feet from
her, hidden in the shadow, stood a man with the
gobbler's head safely gathered up in his armpit,
and the fat body of the bird pressing warmly
against his side. The thief had a sense of
humour, too. 'Don't bother to bring a light,
madam,' said he, 'I've got him.'

Mr. Berry had another story to tell of the
early days — a story which may not be strictly
accurate, but is too good to omit.

A preacher, having lost his voice, took up a
bush farm. He had chopped and burned one
small corner and had everything prepared for his
spring seeding. His oxen, Buck and Bright by
name, were in the bush, the old three-pointed
drag was ready, and the seed was in the bag.

.STRONG DRINK. RELIGION AND LAW 325

But during the night before the seeding, Buck
died and Bright alone was left.

"Never mind," said the ex-preacher hope-
fully to his wife; "if you sow the grain
Maria I will yoke myself with Bright and we
will pull the drag."

The yoking was effected and the first round
started. There was a slight up-grade to the back
of the field but on the return the ground sloped
downward. Whether it was the lighter haul
down, a furry ground-hog, or a belated realiza-
tion of the sort of yoke-mate he had, is not
known, but anyway Bright started on the jump
and the ex-preacher had to jump, too. Maria,
dropping her pan of wheat hurried to head
them off.

"Don't get in the road, Maria," shouted her
spouse as he ran for life dodging blackened
stumps at the same time, "Don't try to head
us off; we're running away."

At the end of the clearing Bright and his
human yoke-fellow ran fair into a brush heap
and were ' fetched up all standing.' Maria,
badly winded, got there almost as soon.

"Unhitch Bright, Maria," gasped the hus-
band, "I'll stand."

326

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

THE BLACK FLAG OF DEATH

"At the time my father came to Canada in
1832, a plague of cholera was sweeping through
the land and the only activity was in the
cemeteries."

This statement was made to me by Henry
Morris, of the township of Colborne, Huron
County. An old newspaper clipping of the
early 'thirties, preserved by Mr. Morris, showed
that he had not exaggerated in his description
of the situation. In this clipping it was stated
that the entire country along the line of the St.
Lawrence frontier, for a distance of five hundred
miles, was being scourged by the plague and
that the ' ' mortality was enormous. ' ' Seigneurs,
judges, members of the Legislature, doctors,
men of all degrees were stricken. Among the
notable victims were the Hon. John Caldwell
and Judges Taschereau and Kerr. The city of
Quebec was in a state of terror, business was
suspended, people shut themselves in their
homes to escape contagion, and plague flags,
more ominous than the red emblem in parts of
Continental Europe to-day, flew everywhere.
In Montreal out of a population of twenty-five
thousand at that time, there were one thousand
deaths. In the whole colony it was estimated
that half the population was attacked and that

327

328 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

one in every twenty-seven of the people
died.

The situation was made worse by the refusal
of the crews of many lake and river steamers
to operate the vessels, and by the action of
people everywhere in barring their doors against
emigrants then streaming into the country, and
who were blamed for bringing the cholera with
them. The emigrants' cup of sorrow was filled
to overflowing when, seeking to escape to the
United States, they found the American militia
lining the border to prevent entrance.

"It was," said Mr. Morris, " under circum-
stances such as these that my parents arrived
at Quebec. They had with them an infant
child that took sick on the way. While on a
river steamer coming up the St. Lawrence the
child died; and in order to conceal death, and so
avoid having the body thrown overboard, my
mother held the dead body in her arms for
twenty-four hours, until Prescott was reached,
and there Christian burial was secured.

"There was just one bright spot in a situation
that otherwise was one of universal gloom.
While the plague was at its height a delegation
came over from New York to assist the stricken.
The most picturesque figure in the delegation
was a doctor, with a beard like that of a prophet
of old, and driving a ramshackle light wagon to
which a team of ponies was attached by rope
harness. This doctor made but the one request as
he journeyed over the plague-smitten territory,
that he be shown where the worst cases were to
be found. When he arrived on the scene of suf-
fering his remedies were of the simplest — pow-

HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 329

dered charcoal, maple sugar, and lard admin-
istered internally; with lye poultices, made from
wood ashes, and as strong as the patient could
stand, applied externally to relieve the cramps
from which cholera patients suffered. In no
case would this Father of Mercy accept fee, but
after his service was ended a fund, raised by
public subscription, was forced upon him. That
nameless American doctor of the 'thirties was
the Hoover and more than the Hoover of
his dav."

THE FATHER OF MERCY

"The most picturesque figure in the delegation, was a
doctor, with a beard like that of a prophet of old, and
driving a ramshackle light wagon to which a team of ponies
was attached by rope harness."

Mr. Morris had to draw on what he had heard
from his parents, or read in an old newspaper
clipping, for what he told me. From Henry
Smith, of Barrie, interviewed a month later, I
received a first hand story, not only of the
devastation caused by cholera outbreak, but of

330 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

the equal calamity due to ship-fever which
occurred some thirteen years afterwards.

"I was in Montreal when the cholera was at
its worst/' said Mr. Smith. "As people were
dying by thousands no time was taken for
funeral ceremonies. The dead were buried by
contract on the basis of so much for each corpse
disposed of. The bodies were hauled away in
carts and dumped in great trenches as the killed
are laid away after battle. I believe many were
buried while merely in the state of stupor that
resembles death. Those immigrants who had not
been attacked were held in quarantine in great
barn-like structures. The sick were housed in
buildings of like construction and with little
more by way of comfort. An immigrant told me
that as their ship was coming up the Gulf of
St. Lawrence they saw, dotting the sea for
miles, bedding that had been thrown overboard
and on which fever-stricken emigrants had died.

"I was in Picton when ship-fever came later,
and as I was attacked by that disease myself, I
saw little of what went on during the worst of
the plague but I was witness of the effects after-
wards. The sufferers were housed in sheds and
a nearby cemetery was largely filled with those
who died. Then, after the plague had appar-
ently been brought under control, the disease
was* carried in the clothing of immigrants to
farm houses in which employment had been
secured. Children seemed to escape the fever,
but among the immigrants, as well as the far-
mers who had employed them, many children
were left orphans and many women widowed.

"The question then arose as to what was to

HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 331

be done with immigrant orphans and widows.
They could not be sent back and could not be
left uncared for here. It was at this juncture
that Bishop Strachan came to the rescue with
heroic remedies. He had the orphaned children
placed in foster homes, and he was credited
with arranging something like forced marriages
for the widows. One well-authenticated case
had to do with a widow who had considerable
cash, and a local farmer who had much land but
no money and no wife. The bishop had banns
proclaimed between these two, and it was not
until after the proclamation that the widow was
told of what had been done. She was further
informed that banns having been published, the
marriage must of necessity be gone on with and
she was ordered to prepare for the same forth-
with. The inevitable was accepted and the
union appears to have turned out quite happily/'

There were some Good Samaritans at the
time of the ship-fever as well as at the time of
the cholera plague. Some of the stricken ones
among the Irish immigrants having reached
Newmarket, an old brewery was turned into a
hospital for their accommodation. Volunteers
were called for to nurse the patients and Wright
Burkett and a harness-maker named Wallace
responded. While engaged on their service of
mercy, Burkett contracted the fever and died,
and Wallace was brought to death's door but
recovered.

The facts in this case were given me by
John Langstaff at the time he told the story
of the tragedies of Yonge Street due to early
drinking customs.

THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

WHERE HEROES LIE

I've tried to portray with the aid of the pen

The last resting place of two different men,

Divergent in life, one humble, one great,

They both passed in death through the same little gate.

Neath six feet of earth they now lie asleep;

Their friends and their neighbours have long ceased to weep;

The hoarse blasts of winter hurl snow o'er the ground,

The soft summer zephyr caresses each mound;

In nature's embrace no difference they find,

It leaves class distinction to fickle mankind.

THE RESTING PLACE OF TWO DIFFERENT MEN

HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 333

We learn from the obelisk reared to the sky,
Resplendent in grandeur, impressing the eye,
That a lofty man lies in the clay damp and cold,
If we read the inscription in letters of gold;
The plot claims attention, the grass is kept shorn,
The sweet blooming flowers are trained to adorn.
The neat iron railing, loop, tassel and fret,
Are painted and varnished the colour of jet :
The lilac in season of beauteous bloom
Ne'er fails to contribute her fragrant perfume.

We turn to the other, neglected it stands

And hence to its fellow more beauty it lends:

The mound it has settled, the slab has a lean,

While round it the weeds in profusion are seen,

Which seem as they sway by the autumn wind blown,

In affection to burnish the face of the stone,

O 'ev the grave of a poor simple knight of the soil

Released from his thraldom of trouble and toil,

Who played well his part when the country was young,

And now lies forgotten, unhonoured, unsung.

— M. McGillivray

Here and there through these stories refer-
ence has been made to occasions, when in
summer's heat or winter's cold the first settlers
laid the bodies of their loved ones in ground
forever hallowed by the labours of the dead and
the living. In many cases these burials
marked the beginning of cemeteries that have
since been maintained by descendants of
the original settlers who still live in the
neighbourhood. In cases without number a
different story must be told. Some of those who
died in the early days were without relatives in
this country and no one was left, even from the
first, to care for the lonely graves in which they
were laid. A typical case was that of which

334 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO

my old friend Larry Smith, of Whitby, once told
me. Pointing to two or three field stones irreg-
ularly embedded on the bank of a stream on his
own farm, he said that these marked the last
resting place of two strangers who had fallen
victims to the cholera plague, which swept the
province in the early part of the last century.
As noted already, burials of necessity followed
promptly on death in such cases, and one of these
victims heard the sound of his coffin being nailed
together before his eyes closed in the last sleep.
In thousands of instances descendants of those
who fell by the wayside, inheriting the wander-
lust to which the creation of Ontario was in no
small part due, followed the moving horizon
beyond which the star of hope always beckoned,
and the result is that to-day almost every town-
ship in Old Ontario has at least one cemetery in
which the names of the dead are those of stran-
gers in a strange land. The descendants of the
pioneers have themselves passed to the beyond,
or are scattered all the way from the Gulf of
Mexico to the polar seas and no one is left to
care for these resting places.

In the closing year of the last century I
visited one such cemetery in the township of
McGfillivray, near where Maple Lodge post-office
then was. Not one of the descendants of those
lying in this cemetery were then living in the
neighbourhood, and sheep were pasturing among
the broken or falling monuments.

One broken slab had been erected to the mem-
ory of " Rebecca, daughter of — ." This was all
that remained of the inscription. Another head-
stone marked the spot where lay the body of a

HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 335

little son of William and Jane Barber, who was
carried off in 1846, at the tender age of one year,
six months, and fourteen days. One could
imagine the grief of the broken-hearted parents
as, amid the gloom of a forest varied only by the
blackened stumps of the scanty clearings, the
body of the little one was laid in the damp
ground. Particularly pathetic, too, was the
blurred lettering over the grave of Alonzo
Barber, born in 1858 and died in 1859. All that
could be deciphered of the lettering in this

case was:
n

Little Stranger

Stay."

But there was a world of pathos in those three
words.

These scattered graves and neglected ceme-
teries of the unknown dead are but gloomy
reminders of man's mortality. They serve no
real purpose, and it would be more in keeping
with what is due to those who blazed the trail
into the forest and laid the foundations of a
prosperous province, if the broken headstones
were wholly removed. Fields of waving grain
or the rich bloom of orchards growing in their
place would in some measure remind those with
ears to hear and eyes to see, of the inestimable
services rendered by the labours of the men and
women who made possible the enjoyment of the
heritage of to-day.

INDEX

ADOLPHTJSTOW:sr, 6, 8, 12

Allan, James, 225
Allan, Wni., 291
Allcock, Jfemes, 273
Allcock, Simon, 273
Allen, Parker, 6, 9
Allin, Chas., 43, 44, 318, 319
Allin, Frank, 44
Allison, D. W., 8
Ambler. Thos., 76
Ancaster, 176, 256
Anderson. Capt., 263
Anderson, Duncan, 105
Anderson, John, 194
Ardagh, Pastor, 76
Armstrong, Bobt., 238
Armstrong, Wm., 24
Asia, the, 115, 116
Aurora, 109

BAXOR, REV. DR., 61
Banks, Mrs., 307
Barber, Alonzo, 335
Barber, Prank, 229
Barber, Jane, 335
Barber, Philip, 229
Barrie, 75, 80, 81, 85 et seq.
Barrie, John, 47
Bayview, 182, 184
Beaver, the, 89

Beaverton, 141, 147, 148, 152, 157

Beck, F. L., 281 et seq.

Belfountain, 182, 184

Belle Ewart, 84, 85, 152, 153, 291

Bellwoods, Chas., 53

Bellwoods, John, 53

Bently, Albert, 273, 274

Bently, Maria, 273

Berry, Geo., 320 et seq.

Best, Thos., 53, 54

Billings, Samuel, 52

Blake, Hon. Ed., 44

Blanding, Sarah J., 273

Bleakley, John, 184

Boline, the, 39, 40

Bowles, James, 206

Bowman, Chas., 53

Bowmanville, 49, 53, 54

Bradstreet, Col., 5

Bmgilla, the, 201

Brisbin, Jane, 17

Brock, R. W., 182 et seq.

Brockville, 68, 227

Brown, John, 40

Bryce, Thos., 261

Buchanan, James, 185 et seq.

Buchanan, Mrs. J., 185 et seq.

Buck, Elijah, 31

Burke, John, 17

Burke, Luke, 17

Burkett, Wright, 331

Burritt, Col., 65, 66

337

338 INDEX

Burritt'B Rapids, 66
ButterfieW, Abraham, 53
Bytown, 3, 62, 195

CALDWELL, GEO., 76
Caldwell, Hon. John, 327
Caldwell, S., 15, 16
Cameron, Col., 149, 315
Cameron, Daniel, 148
Cameron, H. D., 248
Campbell, A., 178 et seq.
Campbell, Colin, 138
Canada Company, the, 169, 170,

177, 213, 234
Cannington, 147
Carleton, Sir Guy, 5, 6
Carmichael, Dougall, 141
Carr, John, 11
Cartier, Jacques, 1
Casey, T. W., 6, 7, 12
Casselman, Nelson, 57, 58, 60
"Cavan Blazers," the, 50, 320

et seq.

Champlain, Samuel, 1
Chapman, Chas., 269
Charters, Mr., 47
Chatham, 207

Chingacousy, 147, 178 et seq.
Chisholm, Kenneth, 180
Christian Islands, 97
Christie, A. R., 169
Chryslers Farm, battle of, 55
Churchill, 92, 292
Clanahan, Mr., 225
Clark, Peter, 247 et seq.
Claughton, John, 133 et seq.
Cleary, Archbishop, 10
Coates, Thos., 62
Cobourg, 15, 227
Colborne, Sir John, 91
Coldwater, 98, 105
Collingwood, 233
Collins, Chas., 97
Collins, Deputy Surveyor, 7

Cook, Elias, 55, 57, 58, 60
Cook, H. H., 55
Cooksville, 179
Cornell, Wm., 51
Cornwall, 55

Corrigan, Mr., 281 et seq.
Cotton, Noah, 300
Coulter, Andrew, 225
Coulthard, G. H., 260
Courtice, Thos., 40
Crae, Wm., 76
Craig, Thos., 96, 97
Craven, Linwood, 237 et seq.
Crawford, Angus, 37
Crawford, Archie, 224
Creemore, 99, 102, 155
Crooks, Capt., 211, 212
Crooks, Hon. James, 196
Crown Hill, 74, 75, 76, 85, 96
Gulp, Tilman, 18
Cummings, Patrick, 259
Currie, Archie, 102

DAVIDSON, CYRUS, 312

Davis, Asa, 47

Dayton, D. L., 229

Devins, Abraham ,12S

Devins, Isaac, 128, 131

Dobie, David, 220 et seq.

Donaldsons, the, 190

Dorchester, Lord, see Sir Guy

Carleton

Doherty, Bernard, 274, 275
Doherty, Hon. M., 50, 274, 275, 276
Douse, Rev. Mr., 49
Drury, Hon. E. C., 78, 80, 96
Drury, Richard, 78, 79
Drury, Thos., 78, 79, 12fi
Dundas, 36

Eagle, Samuel, 183, 184
Education Acts, 1S41-4S, 76

INDEX

339

Ekfrid, 225
Elliott, Andrew. 202
Elliott, Henry, 39, 40, 41
Emily May, the, 153
Enterprise, the, 195, 196
Essence, John, 82
Euclid, the, 208
Eugenia Falls, 227 el seq.

Family Compact, the, 114, 191

Farley, John, 42

Farmersville, 67

Fletcher, Alex., 17

Foley, Richard, 39

Forneri, Rev. R. 8., 6, 9, 10

Forsyth, Major, 70

Fort Frontenac, 5, 6, 7

Frankish, T. B., 270, 272

Franklin, Sir John, 91

Frazer, Rev. Wm., 245

Frontenac, Gov., 5

Full james House, the, 107

GAIRBRAID, 168, 170
Galloway, Joseph, 99
Galloway, Rev. Mr., 315
Gananoque, 68 et seq.
Gerow, Joseph, 17
Gifford, E., 53
Gilchrist, Colin, 301
Gillespie, Duncan, 148
Gillies, Margaret, 194
Goderich, 167, 212, 248
Gooderhams, the, 108
Goodfellow, W., 292
Gordon, Adam, 151
Gowan, N. C., 231
Gowan, Ogle R., 231
Graham, John, 223
Grant, Alex., 270
Grant, Principal, 10
Grass, Capt., Michael, 5, 6, 8

Gray, Rev. John, 303, 304, 305

Green, Dr., 62

Grieves, John, 39

Gunn, Andrew, 136

Gunn, Donald, 149

Gunn, Dr., 149

Gunn, John, 148 et seq.

Gunn, Mrs. John, 152

HAGERMAN, CHIEF JUSTICE, 9
Hagerman, Nicholas, 9
Hallett, Silas, 232
Hamilton, John, 97
Hampton, 41, 42
Hardy, Rev. Mr., 83
Harrison, Eliza, 173
Hawkstone, 104, 106
Heck, Barttara, 61, 62
Heck, George, 61,62
Henry, John, 93
Henry, W. T., 206
Herriman, Dr., 52
Hessians, the, 2
Hewson, Wm., 80 et seq.
Hickling, Chas., 78, 79
Hicklmg, G., 79
Hipwell, Mother, 19
Hodge, Henry, 62
Hogg's Hollow, 138, 139
Holland Landing, 74, 75, 81 et s
Holland, Surveyor-General, 7
Hoover, D., 20, 21
Hoover, Mrs. D., 18, 19, 22
Hopps, Wm., 266
Home, Henry, 131
Home, T. W., 136
Huggard, R. L., 166
Hume, James, 191
Hunter, A. F., 75, 89
Hunter, Wm., 147
Hurlburt, Rev. E., 62

Jackson, Hon. Peter, 52

340 INDEX

James, David, 128
James, Rachel, 272
Johns, Eldad, 311
Johnson, Asa, 128
Johnson, Hugh, 208 et seq.
Johnson, Sir John, 8, 69
Jones, Elias, 31
Jones, Samuel, 45

KERR, JUDGE, 327

Kerr, Wm., 303

Kingston, 3, 5, 10, 14, 32, 40, 60,

68, 195, 196
Koch, John, 26

LAIDLAW, JAMES, 194

Lakeland, 84, 85

Larkin, Wm., 78

Langstaff, John, 295 et seq., 331

Layton, John, 229

Leeds Trader, the, 70

Little, Joe, 213

Little Blue Church, the, 62

Little Cataraqui Creek, 7

Little York, 117, 139

Lincoln, Abraham, 44

Lindsay, 228

Livingstone, A., 265 et seq.

Livingstone, "Bill", 54

Livingstone, John, 37

Lizars, Daniel, 168

London, J. F., 169

Lount, Samuel, 114

Loyalists, U.E., 2,6,9,63,66,68

Me.

McAlmon, Flora, 124
McAlmon, Malcolm, 124
McArthur, Donald, 157
McBain, John, 250

McBane, Nancy, 17
McCallum, Geo., 286 et seq.
McCammon, E. M., 63
McCarthy, D 'Alton, 55
McClean, John, 168
McDonald, John S., 255 et seq.,

293

McDougall, Alex., 146
McDougall, Angus, 148, 149
McDougall, Chas., 246, 247
McDougall, Neil, 243 et seq., 293
McFadyen, Archie, 138
McFadyen, Colin, 136 et seq., 315
McFadyen, Miss, 145
McGillivray, M., 333
McGinnis, Pte., 97
McKeyes, Daniel, 35
McKinnon, Donald, 247
McLachlan, Colin, 144
McLeod, Capt., 262
McMillan, Archie, 138
McMurchy, Rev. Mr., 148, 158
McNab, John, 262 et seq.
McPhail, John, 242
McPherson, Peter, 191
McTavish, Rev. Dr., 304

Macdonald, Charlotte. (v-J, 71
Macdonald, Chas., 63, 71
Macdonald, Col., 8
Macdonald, John, 71
Macdonald, John Sandfield, 252
Macdonald, Sir John A., 6, 12, 13
Mackenzie, Wm. Lyon, 126, 129,
177, 181, 182, 192, 277, 288, 296
Magnetewan, 151
Mairs, Thos., 78
Manchester, 147, 149, 156, 164
Markham, 127
•Markham Gang", the, 142
Mariposa, 102
Massey, Hart A., 43
Meaford, 228, 229
Mennonites, the, 26

INDEX

341

Merry, John, 157
Michie, Wm., 191
Middleton, John, 53
Miller, Nicholas, 128
Miller, Simon, 127 et seq.
Millerites, the, 43, 44, 318 et seq.
Millor, James R., 71, 72
Mississaguas, the, 66
Mitchell, Dr., 40
Mitchell, Robt., 233
Monteith, Hon. Nelson, 286
Montgomery, John, 114
Montgomery's Tavern, 114, 129,

178, 283, 296
Moore, Sir John, 184
Moraviantown, 221
Morgan, Canon, 76
Morpeth, 207
Morris, Henry, 242, 243, 327

et seq.

Morrison, Hon. J., 182
Morrison, J. J., 277, 278
Morrison, Eobt., 277
Morton, James, 12
Moulton, Joseph, 47
Mount Albert, 141
Muuceytown, 221
Munro, Mr., 44
Murray, Hugh, 260
Myers, Mrs., 95

NEWCASTLE, 43, 44, 47
Newmarket, 146
Newton, John, 35
Newtonville, 45, 49
Nixon, Mrs., 211
Nottawasaga, 99 et seq.

OAKVILLE, 171, 174, 175, 190, 191
Omemee, 45, 50
Orillia, 102, 105

Ormiston, Dr., 42
Orser, Jeremiah, 52
Oshawa, 40, 42, 227
Oswego, 3
Ottawa, 3, 195
Owen Sound, 180

Parkinson, Robt., 215

Partridge, Chas., 78, 79

Paterson, Col., 151

Paterson, Dr. B., 85

Patton, J. W., 233, 234

Penetanguishene, 73, 74, 78 et seq,

Perry, James, 230

Petanquet, Chief, 238

Phillips, Jacob, 128

Pickering, 82, 129

Pierce, Moses, 234, 236, 237

Pierce, Wm., 236

Port Credit, 179, 180

Port Granby, 49

Port Hope, 40, 45

Port Perry, 52

Port Stanley, 225

Powers, Arthur, 309

Powers, Calvin H., 44

Powers, H. L., 310 et seq.

Powers, Simon, 39

Prescott, 55, 61, 62

Procter, Gen., 217

Purdy, Jesse, 228

Purdy, R. McLean, 227 et seq.

Purdy, Wm., 228

QUEBEC, 1, 53, 65

Queen's Bush, the, 132 et seq.

Quiute, Bay of, 3, 6, 13

RAYMOND, REV. ME., 305

Rainham, 22

Reesors, the, 23, 24, 25

342

INDEX

Reieheld, Nicholas, 280
Reid, David, 61
Richmond Hill, 128
Riddell, Judge, 29
Riddell, Walter, 29 et seq.
Richardson, Gideon, 75
Ridgetown, 207
Ritchie, Rev. Mr., 204
Rittenhouse, Uriah, 21
Robertson, John, 104
Robertson, Geo., 104
Robertson, Lt. James, 215
Robertson, Norman, 260
Robinson, Hon. J. B., 9
Robson, R. W., 53
Rogers, Col., 8
Rugby, 104, 105, 106
Russell, Peter, 270

ST. THOMAS, 217
Schmidt, Heinrich, 86
Schneider, Nicholas, 281 et seq.
Schooner, Jacob, 128
Scotch line, the, 124
Sewell, John, 232
Shearer, Mrs. John, 203, 204
Simcoe, Gov. J. G., 128
Simpson, Hon. John, 53
Simpson, Sir George, 116
Sinclair, Capt., 181
Sissons, Jonathan, 76, 78, 79
Southwick, Paulina, 201
Slack, Joseph, 67
Smith, "Bayside", 151
Smith, James, 305 et seq.
Smith, Henry, 80, 87, 88, 329

et seq.

Smith, Larry, 334
Smith, Sir Henry, 12
Snell, James, 241
Sorel, 6, 7

Soulos, David, 82, 91, 93
Spiers, Peter, 184

Stamm, John, 90

Stanton, Oliver, 31

Stayner, 101, 103

Stephens, Wm., 229

Stewart, John, 191, 192

Stewart, Duncan, 194

Stone, Col. Joel, 63, 68 et seq.

Stone, Mary, 71

Stouffville 163

Strachan, Bishop, 91, 299, 331

Stroud, 93

Sullivan, Robt., 174

Sutton, 148

Sunnidale, 93, 114 et seq.

Sutherland, Rev. Alex., 294

Switzer, Martin, 177

TALBOT, COL., 217

Talbot Settlement, the, 216

Taschereau, Judge, 327

Thompson, Alfred, 80

Thompson, Col. Ed., 181

Thompson, Col. Wm., 182

Thompson, Isaac, 115 et seq.

Thompson, James, 182

Thompson, Robt., 84

Thompson, Samuel, 126

Thompson, Thomas, 126

Thome, Mr., 131

Thornhill, 130

Thornton, C. J., 53

Thornton, Thos., 53

Thurston, Henry, 303

Tindall, Rev. R. L., 231

Tollendale, 92

Toronto, 14, 50, 62, 75, 78, 80, 81,

93, 97

Treffry, John, 195 et seq.
Trull, Capt. J. C., 18
Trull, Jesse, 13 et seq.
Trull, John, 18
Trull, Pamela, 17
Tudhope, Geo., 105
Tuckers, the, 190

INDEX

343

UNIONVILLE, 127

United Kingdom, the, 117

Uxbridge, 269

VAN ALSTINE, MAJOR, 8
Van Dusen, Rev. Mr., 49

WALLACE, ANDREW, 85
Warnicas, the, 90 et seq.
Warnica, J. L., 106, 107, 111

et seq.

Watson, Wm. 216 et seq.
Weller, Wm., 31
Wellings, Obe, 228
Welsh, Wm., 294
Whitehaven, the, 29

White, James, 75
Whitlock, Rev. J., 39
Whittaker, Rich., 301
Widdifield, J. W., 269 et seq.
Wilson, Chas. 93
Wilson, Joseph, 230
Wilson, Justus, 201
Windmill, Battle of the, 61
Woodruff, Betsy, 17
Woods, Samuel, 232
Wright, Geo., 182
Wylie, Samuel, 232

Yeomans, Miss, 83
Yonge Street, 127 et seq.
Young, Wm., 241

Zimmerman, Peter, 286

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